Dolphins aren't the only mammals that employ echolocation for navigation and prey detection. It's a trait that's also well developed in bats. It's clearly convergent, as the ancestry of the two groups is quite different. However, new research appearing in Current Biology tells us that echolocation in bats and whales arises through nearly identical genetic changes.
A gene known as prestin has evolved along the same lines in both the bats and in the dolphins examined. As a result, if we examined the phylogeny of the groups based on this gene alone, they would appear to be closely related when, in fact, they aren't.The results suggest that, when a mammal finds itself in an environment where the ability to hear high frequency sounds and utilize them for echolocation, there may be only a very few genetic approaches to solving that problem. Perhaps, only one.
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