I think I have finally figured out why flying foxes, the large bats with adorable faces, freak me out so much.
When they wrap their wings up like this…
…they remind me of the “winged devourers” from the 1982 classic The Beastmaster:
The winged devourers are pretty effective as scary movie monsters:
As grotesquely illustrated below, the winged devourers use their wings to capture and hold human prey. Once secured, they vomit a corrosive solvent over the squirming meal’s head. This is a form of external digestion, which you’ve also seen in spiders, the common housefly or the extremely rare Brundlefly.
Once regurgitated, the caustic upchuck sinks in for a few moments, liquefying flesh right off the bone. Then the monster sucks most of the grotesque soup back up into its gullet for a tasty meal.
Clearly, the creature lacks anything resembling a proper jaw — and this is key. Since it lacks the basic tools of mastication, it has to break down flesh into a liquid to consume it.
Since that was creepy as f***, here are the Beastmaster’s adorable ferret pals, Kodo and Podo: