Human-Sized Bat From The Philippines Goes Viral On Twitter

A photo of a seemingly human-sized bat vent viral on Twitter this week with over 700,000 likes on the app leaving people horrified.

The bat is called the golden-crowned flying fox and is native to the Philippines, it has a 1.7 m wingspan.

Twitter user @AlexJoestar622 created the viral tweet and wrote, “Remember when I told y’all about the Philippines having human-sized bats? Yeah, this was what I was talking about.”

A photo of the golden-crowned flying fox was included along with a screenshot of another post about the large bat. It read, “The giant golden-crowned flying fox can be found in the Philippines and has a wingspan of up to 1.7 m (5.58 feet). Despite their hulking size, these bats are vegetarian and consume primarily fruit.”

While the thought that these bats would not be feasting on human flesh should be comforting, many were still left scared of the giant bat. One person replied that they would “leave the country.”  The original poster answered those in fear and said, “Before y’all freak tf out, the check the second image and read it like 10 times, i don’t want y’all to get scared of bats.”

Account @Cinny_vertigo responded by explaining that the bat’s body is not that big because a lot of its size is due to its large wingspan. The bat also appears larger because of angles of the camera. She wrote, “With the general law of large flying animals, the length of an animal is generally a third of its wingspan, suggesting that the bat itself is 1.9 feet in truth. The rest of the photos are in angles.”