Our understanding of the phylogenetic relationships among extant bat species has increased considerably over the past two decades (Hutcheon et al., 1998; Murphy et al., 2001; Springer et al., 2001; Teeling et al., 2002; Van den Bussche et al., 2004; Eick et al., 2005; Teeling et al., 2005). Bats diverged from other ordinal groups within the Laurasiatheria around 80 million years ago (Springer et al., 2001) and diversified in the early Eocene (Teeling et al., 2005). Bats were traditionally split into the two suborders Microchiroptera (bats that echolocate by producing sounds in the larynx) and Megachiroptera (Old World fruit bats represented by the single family Pteropodidae), however, the former is now known not to represent a true clade. Instead, the emerging and highly resolved molecular tree places all megachiropterans (which do not possess laryngeal echolocation) with some members of the microchiropteran superfamily Rhinolophoidea (horseshoe bats and allies) in a proposed new clade called the Yinpterochiroptera (Springer et al., 2001; Teeling et al., 2002; Teeling et al., 2005). Other microchiropterans group together in a second clade-the Yangochiroptera-and this  new arrangement raises the question of whether laryngeal echolocation has either evolved twice independently or has been lost in the Old World fruit bats (Springer et al., 2001; Teeling et al., 2002; Teeling et al., 2005; Jones et al., 2006). Although similarities between early fossil bats -which appear basal to all other bats-and extant echolocating species appear to support the latter scenario (Jones et al., 2006), others have argued in favour of convergence in the two clades (Eick et al., 2005). A possible loss of laryngeal echolocation appears especially interesting given that one genus of cave roosting fruitbat (Rousettus) has subsequently evolved a simple from echolocation based on tongue clicking (Jones et al., 2006).