A bat is a nocturnal mammal that uses echolocation to navigate and hunt.
Many bats produce very high-frequency sounds with their larynx and listen for returning echoes. The timing, strength, and pitch of those echoes help reveal an object’s distance, size, shape, texture, and movement. This biological sonar lets insect-eating bats locate prey and avoid obstacles in darkness.
Most echolocating bats emerge from caves, trees, buildings, or other roosts around dusk. They often hunt insects in open air, near water, or around vegetation, where their aerial maneuverability gives them an advantage. Not every bat relies on echolocation in the same way, and fruit-eating bats may depend more heavily on vision and smell.
A flying fox is a type of bat, but it is not the best canonical answer here because many flying foxes do not use sophisticated laryngeal echolocation. Moths are insects, and owls are birds; both can hunt at night but do not fit the question’s combination of mammal and echolocation.