Fossils of a cardinal-sized creature recently unearthed in western Wyoming suggest that primitive bats developed the ability to fly before they could track their prey with biological sonar. More than one-fifth of living mammal species are bats, and most of those use echolocation to track prey or avoid obstacles. The fossil record of these delicate-boned creatures is sparse, but analyses hint that even the earliest known bats-those flitting through the skies between 54 million and 50 million years ago-could echolocate, says Nancy B. Simmons, a vertebrate paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
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机译：最近在怀俄明州西部出土的一种基数大小的生物的化石表明，原始蝙蝠在利用生物声纳追踪猎物之前就已经具备了飞行能力。超过五分之一的活着的哺乳动物物种是蝙蝠，其中大多数使用回声定位来追踪猎物或避开障碍物。这些脆弱的生物的化石记录很少，但分析表明，即使是最早的蝙蝠（在5400万至5000万年前飞过天空的蝙蝠）也可能回声定位，该州的脊椎动物古生物学家Nancy B. Simmons说。美国纽约自然历史博物馆。
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