Photo of viral human-sized bat leaves people 'horrified'

The Human-sized bat in the Philippines. Photo / Twitter via @AlexJoestar622

People have been left horrified by the size of this enormous bat.

The giant golden-crowned flying fox was photographed in the Philippines and has since gone viral across social media.

A Twitter user first shared the pic of the bat hanging upside down, attracting nearly 300,000 likes.

"Remember when I told y'all about the Philippines having human-sized bats? Yeah, this was what I was talking about," he wrote.

The large fruit-eating bat is native to the Asian archipelago and can have a wingspan up to 1.7m.

"Despite their hulking size, these bats are vegetarian and consume primarily fruit," a post alongside the photo said.

The Twitter user was shocked his post "blew up" and said he didn't want people to become scared of bats - but people certainly were scared of this one.

"Holy mother. It's a Batman the size of a man," wrote one commenter.

Another said imagine waking up and this bat flying straight at you.

The Human-sized bat in the Philippines. Photo / Twitter via @AlexJoestar622

"I'd leave the country," they said.

"This bat is taller than me and I'm both horrified and impressed in equal measure," said another.

One man from the Philippines pointed out while the flying foxes have a huge wingspan their bodies are not that big, about the same as a small-to-medium-sized dog.

"They're really gentle too," he said.

Another person said, "Holy hell I would be terrified if I saw one of those (in real life). Don't get me wrong ... I love bats, this is just so wild a concept that it's not registering in my brain and I'd be convinced I was seeing a demon or something".

Some have pointed out the perspective of the photo makes the animal look bigger.

Nevertheless, it's one of the largest bat species in the world.