Answer: Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox

You’ve probably seen a bat up close, at least a few times in your life. If you live in North America, the bats you’ve seen up close are pretty tiny. Most North American bats are scarcely larger than mice.

If you want to see big bats and we mean big as in wing-spans roughly equal to the height of a human, you’ll need to head to tropical rain forests and islands around the world where you’ll find species of the flying fox family of bats. Specifically, in the rain forests of the Philippines, you’ll find the largest of the mega bat species, the giant golden-crowned flying fox. This endangered species can attain a wingspan of an almost unbelievable 5.6 feet (1.7 meters) across.

Thankfully, despite looking terrifying and like it is capable of swooping down to snatch up children and carry them off into the night, the giant golden-crowned flying fox, like most other mega bat species, is a fruit bat—they’re rather docile and attain their large size by eating from the abundance of wild fruits found in rain forests.