Onychonycteris known species, hence "Onychonycteris" meaning "clawed bat". The specific epithet is a tribute to the fossil prospector and preparator who discovered it, Bonnie Finney. "Onychonycteris finneyi" was the strongest evidence so far in the debate on whether bats developed echolocation before or after they evolved the ability to fly. "O. finneyi" had well-developed wings, and could clearly fly, but lacked the enlarged cochlea of all extant echolocating bats, closer resembling the old world fruit bats which do not echolocate. This indicates that early bats could fly before they could echolocate. However, an independent evaluation of the "Onychonycteris" reference fossil in
Animal echolocation transition (14 Ma), with the divergence of odontocetes and mysticetes occurring with the former, and the speciation of delphinioidae with the latter. There is a strong connection between these proteins, the ocean restructuring events, and the echolocation evolution. One specific type of echolocation, narrow-band high frequency (NBHF) clicks, evolved at least four times in groups of odontocetes, including the pygmy sperm whale (Kogiidae) and porpoise (Phocoenidae) families, "Pontoporia blainvillei", the genus "Cephalorhynchus", and part of the genus "Lagenorhynchus". These high frequency clicks likely evolved as adaptation of predator avoidance, as they inhabit areas that have many killer whales and the