Onychonycteris

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Onychonycteris
Fossil range: Early Eocene

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Chiroptera
Family:	Onychonycteridae
Genus:	Onychonycteris
Species:	O. finneyi

Binomial name

Onychonycteris finneyi
Simmons, Seymour, Habersetzer, and Gunnell 2005

Onychonycteris is the most primitive and one of the two oldest known species of bat, having lived in the area that is current day Wyoming 52.5 million years ago.Two fossils of this species were found in the "Green River Formation in 2003, and placed in a new family when the discovery was published in Nature, in February 2008.^[1] It occurs alongside Icaronycteris index, previously the most primitive known bat species. Onychonycteris was unique among bats in that it had claws on all five fingers, as opposed to two or three in all other known species,^[2] hence it's genus name which means "clawed bat." The specific epithet is a tribute to the fossil prospector and preparator who discovered it, Bonnie Finney. It is now the type species for the extinct family Onychonycteridae.

It is 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.^[3] It is still unknown whether this bat had the large eyes of most nocturnal animals because fossils with intact eye sockets have yet to be found.