Photo: Getty Images
It seems that most humans are wired to be disturbed by certain creatures - snakes, spiders, rats and of course, bats. Even though the flying mammals are small, they still tend to creep most people out, but what if they weren't so small? Well a recent photo of a "human-sized" bat is really instilling fear in people.
The pic was posted to Twitter with the caption, "Remember when I told y'all about the Philippines having human-sized bats? Yeah, this is what I was talking about." The image shows what looks like an enormous bat hanging upside-down with its wings wrapped around itself.
It definitely is a big bat - in fact the species' name even points that out. It is a giant golden-crowned flying fox, and while the fruit-eating creature native to the Philippines is considered a megabat, it is not as big as the pic makes it seem. The animals can have a pretty huge wing-span of over five feet, but their bodies are usually only one foot tall and they only weigh two-and-a-half pounds.
So why does the one in the picture look massive? That's because of a camera trick called forced perspective, which uses an optical illusion to make things look big or small based on the objects around them. In this case, the bat is much closer than the objects in the background, but it looks like it is on the same plane as them so it seems much bigger than it actually is.
Commenters were deeply disturbed by the nightmarish image with many writing, "NOPE" and expressing how they would leave the country if they encountered the bat. Others had a hard enough time looking at the pic on their phone, with one person writing, "I had to lock my screen." A few though thought the creature was cute and wanted it as a pet.