Many modern bats use echolocation to help navigate and capture prey in flight. Most echolocating bats produce the signal in their larynx, but a few species create echolocation sounds by tongue clicks, and other bats do not echolocate at all.
Scientists used CT scans to study the articulation of the ear bones in modern bats and found that the bats that use echolocation produced from the larynx have a distinctive articulation of the stylohyal bone with the tympanic bone not seen in the bats that do not echolocate or that use tongue clicks.
In other words, the ability to produce echolocation using the larynx is recorded in the skeletal structure of bats, and this makes it possible to look for this feature in fossil bats.
The oldest known fossil bat appears to have this distinctive articulation but a conclusive answer awaits more fossil finds.
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