They just discovered that bats capture and eat bats.
How can they be certain that bats can't fly without echolocation?
I don’t think the author is correct.
Bats aren’t stupid. They are also not blind.
And I’m pretty sure they have a built-in compass as most animals do, to find their way home.
Bat’s radar is for finding prey, not finding their home.........
Given the new things being discovered about bat intelligence- at least in one species from Egypt- they cannot be sure bats cannot fly without echolocation.
Bats in this study are able to remember fruit trees , when they are worth visiting or not, and if you can remember and think in advance about a given location like a fruit bearing tree, it would be surprising to me that they couldn’t fly by memory alone.
In addition, bats aren’t necessarily blind. They have eyes. Some species can see, and how well probably varies by species.
They may also have senses as birds do for detecting the electromagnetic field, etc. Some birds can actually navigate by the stars and position of the sun. We know so little about bats relative to birds that a person would be foolish to say they are sure of everything these animals are capable of.
No species of bat is blind.