Have you tried /r/askscience? Not that a historian of science here might not have an answer, but a biologist might be able to give you some good starting points in the literature.

As to why, well it’s not implausible to wonder how a night flying creature that lacks the large eyes of other nocturnal predators (e.g., owls) and that hunts minuscule fast moving aerial prey that’s difficult to see at night managed to locate said prey.

So it’s something I strongly suspect natural historians would have been interested in uncovering ...