Time's arrow in the evolutionary development of bat flight

Abstract

Conceptualizing the evolution of flight in mammals is confounded by a lack of empirical evidence. In this chapter, we quantify functional ontogeny to model the evolution of flight in bats to fill in transitional gaps between a hypothetical nonvolant ancestor and volant descendents. Our data thus far indicate that bats evolved flapping flight mechanics directly with no gliding intermediate forms and that bats most likely evolved from a terrestrial, rather than arboreal, ancestor. We predict that future analysis of locomotor ontogeny in contemporary bats will be instrumental in bridging the significant gaps and discontinuities between fossil, molecular, and mechanical evidence thus far used to interpret flight evolution in mammals.