Thursday, June 25, 2020

Wait a second, this image of a seemingly terrifyingly enormous bat is real?



Snopes on the photo:
Regardless of the exact species, this is a genuine photograph of a large megabat. It was first posted to the “Nature Is Metal” section of Reddit on 9 August 2018 along with the claim that it showed a “Flying Fox” in the Philippines

...

While these images are real, they may also give viewers an unrealistic expectation about the size of megabats. We’ve encountered a few social media posts, for instance, labeling this bat as “human-sized.”

The flying fox is one of the largest species of bats in the world, with a wingspan growing to nearly 5 1/2 feet.
A NatGeo short video:




(I must have come across this photo in the past, but if so, my mind must have protected me by refusing to form a lasting memory.)