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
Doppler Shift Compensation resolution. DSC however is not employed by frequency-modulated, or FM, bats. These bats have a broad range of frequencies to which they are maximally sensitive, and thus do not need to tightly modulate the echo frequency. For FM bats, the frequency of the Doppler shifted echoes still falls within their range of auditory responsiveness. Hence, they do not need a DSC mechanism to optimize their echolocation behavior. FM bats produce short pulses, often less than 5 ms in duration, that contain a broad range of frequencies covering up to 80–100 kHz. Bats use FM pulses to determine target distance, by