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 mammals other than bats known to echolocate include two genera ("Sorex" and "Blarina") of shrews and the tenrecs of Madagascar. These include the wandering shrew ("Sorex vagrans"), the common or Eurasian shrew ("Sorex araneus"), and the short-tailed shrew ("Blarina brevicauda"). The nature of shrew sounds unlike those of bats are low amplitude, broadband, multi-harmonic and frequency modulated. They contain no ‘echolocation clicks’ with reverberations and would seem to be used for simple, close range spatial orientation. In contrast to bats, shrews use echolocation only to investigate their habitat rather than additionally to pinpoint food. There is evidence that blinded laboratory