A Giant Bat Went Viral Thanks to a Clever Photograph

Most people don't imagine bats to be the size of a big bird, let alone a bat that comes close to the size of some humans, yet there are in fact bats that grow to such sizes, and a picture of a human-size bat recently went viral on the internet. The bat was photographed in the Philippines, where it's a native species, and many people couldn't believe it was real.

The cute and now-famous bat was photographed hanging upside down and is from a very real species called the golden-crowned flying fox or the golden-capped fruit bat. Despite its size, this bat is not dangerous at all because it mainly eats fruit and doesn't attack humans. The picture shows the bat hanging upside down outside of someone's house and was shared on X. While some have pointed out that this bat and bats from its species are not actually human-sized, they certainly are among the largest bats in the world. The reach of its wings can go up to five-and-a-half feet wide and it grows to be around a foot tall.

In this particular picture, the bat looks even larger due to the way the photograph was taken. It was done using forced perspective, a technique that can make an object look massive or small when its actual size is different and can be observed from a different perspective. The same technique was used when shooting The Lord of the Rings to make the hobbits seem small compared to everyone else.