Photo of ‘human-sized' bat leaves social media users horrified

A photo of a gigantic-looking bat has left social media users horrified after someone shared it on micro-blogging website, Twitter, claiming to show a’human-sized’ bat in Philippines.  

The photo that went virual on soccial media appears to show a ‘human-sized’ bat hanging upside down from a roof. it is actually a clever camera trick.

The post has had more than a quarter of a million likes and was captioned: “Remember when I told y’all about the Philippines having human-sized bats? Yeah, this was what I was talking about.”

And although the bat pictured – thought to be a giant golden-crowned flying fox – is considered a megabat, many comments from people claiming the bat is “taller than me” are wide of the mark, Mirror reported.

The species of bat can have an impressive wingspan of up to about 5.6ft but their bodies are estimated to be in the 1-2ft range and weigh about 1.2kg.

The viral post makes clever use of perspective, placing the bat far closer to the camera than the background – which was more than enough to give some people nightmares.

One said: “Just imagine this bat waking up and flying straight at you. I’d leave the country.

Others tried to calm the panic, as one person explained: “Heya, from the Philippines here. I can confirm this, they have a huuuuuge wingspan but the bodies are not really that big, more or less like the same body as a medium (bit smaller) sized dog. And yeah they only eat fruits, guavas most particularly. They’re really gentle too.”