What the Hell is Onychonycteris?! 

I was thinking the same thing as your wife. We know fossilization takes very special circumstances and it's likely that only a very small percentage of all life that ever existed left fossil remains. But the lack of any evidence of transitional proto-bats is kinda frustrating.

Hey perfect animal to study for Halloween! I also love that their evolution is still mysterious. I hope to actually see their lineage more clearly understood in my lifetime

1:42 Would a good analogue be either the Florida Everglades or the regions of Southeast Asia (mostly Java, Indonesia) as a possible representation of what Green River was like back then?

"It falls somewhere between..." For any creationists listening, that means it is a transitional fossil.

Have you thought about doing a video features an overview of Bat DNA studies? Thanks for this video, Happy Halloween

Now I know what is a prehsitoric bat,so that's pretty dope

I grew up like ten miles from fossil butte and it was pretty damn awesome. I have many fossils from the green river formation

Fruit eating bats often fly in daylight. Much less selective advantage for echolocation. I would have thought that small insectivorous mammals might use echolocation even before plausiblly evolving into bats.

10:24 Bats are more closely related to the Eulipotyphlans, aka the current Inscetivorans (True shrews, true moles, hedgehogs, solenodons, etc...). They're not related to rodents and primates. Although since they're part of Laurasiatheria, that means they're also (very distantly) related to whales and dolphins since they have similar echolocation/sonar abilities. Although it's mostly the result of convergence.

The algorithm brought me, cute cat meme. The video quality is very good.

There are some bats that eat relatively large, compared to the bat, mammals, reptiles & birds as well as parasites, i.e. vampire (blood-lapping) bats.

Hey good news, RU-vid is starting to share your videos. I’m happy I clicked on this one! New subscriber keep up the good work

bats are that successful because they adapt really well to foreign environments.

I bought a fossil, and named her Trillian, she's my Emotional-Support Trilobite...

It sounds like they are assuming that echolocation is an adaptation for flight. I would think that any nocturnal animal would find a selective advantage for echolocation, either on the ground but especially living in a tree.

It’s the annoying frick in caves who keeps giving me rabies.

8:42/9:18 But did it? Cause I do remember hearing (mostly from PBS Eons & Moth Light Media) that this bat was unable to echolocate, and that its skull was partially crushed.

That's adaptive radation for you.

Africa: Birthplace of humanity Mesopotamia: Birthplace of civilization United States: Birthplace of bats

ive dug fossils at fossil butte its awesome

Cool

10:14 I do know that PBS Eons also went into this subject. 10:28/10:30 Now for me, it's kind of the mammalian version of Mark Witton's flying pterosaur hypothesis.

da ROM comin thru

The Jamaican fruit bat is a microchiropteran though. Megachiropterans only live in the old world and Australia-Oceania.

Preparators... Preparers?

why are there no omnivorous bats?

Strangely, PBS Eons said Onychonycteris could not echo-locate.

For some reason the words "Green River" keeps making the song Green Hell pop into my head

3,288th

Thank you for such informative videos!

Bats are the mammalian analog of pterosaurs in so many ways. From thier likely evolutionary roots to their (for the most part) ecological roles and membrane wings. 50 million years into pterosaur evolution they were mostly small and insectivorous and fruit hadnt even shown up yet eleminating that possibility. I wonder how many if any the small insectivor pterosaurs were nocturnal as well it would lend insight to the question of wither bats were forced into a nocturnal lifestyle by the already established birds having sight as thier dominant sense and the need to nitch partition like we see with similar animals sharing habitats today.

I've seen the holotype at the R.O.M.

It could also be that Megabats are the most basal forms of bats, and Microbats are more derived. Onychonycteris could be a transitional form from Megabat to Microbat.

If bats have always had echolocation when did it evolve because I thought it was a complicated type of navigation and that would’ve taken millions of years to evolve

According to Nancy Simmons who described Onychonycteris, it could NOT echolocate, where does your information come from?

Love bats

great video

This isn't evolution we have seen a reduction in gene diversity. Change is within the information that bats always had! Fruit bats are interesting vegetarian (omnivore) critters!