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…
Via Facebook / Frans de Waal – Public Page
…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:
