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
Barbastelle this world, participated in an evolutionary arms race. The foe for the bat order Chiroptera is its prey, the moth order Lepidoptera. To minimize the risk of the bats' echolocation, moths [and in rarest examples, butterflies] have evolved to detect the echolocation calls of hunting bats, and evoke evasive flight manoeuvres, or reply with their own ultrasonic clicks to confuse the bat's echolocation. The Arctiidae subfamily of Noctuid moths uniquely respond to bat echolocation in three prevailing hypotheses: startle, sonar jamming, and acoustic aposematic defence. All these differences depend on specific environmental settings and the type of echolocation call; however,