Viral Albino Bat Photo is Fake
The Claim
The picture of an albino vampire bat depicts an actual living creature.
Emerging story
People have been sharing pictures of an alleged albino vampire bat.
There have been many posts about this adorable creature, so it’s hard to know for sure when the claim was first made. The first post we could find referring to it as a real creature is on a Facebook page.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar's investigation found that this albino bat is a toy. While it’s cute and lifelike, it doesn’t quite resemble the real thing. Here’s a picture of a non-albino vampire bat.
No matter what color the bat’s going to be, it’s not going to make it look as cute as the one shared on social media. No, this is a toy made by a Russian woman who sells her work on Etsy. We conducted a reverse image search and found that the picture appears to be pulled from her Instagram.
This was posted in 2019. She also posted that people are using her pictures to sell counterfeit bats, which may explain why they circulated on the internet so wildly.
Cute as they are, they aren’t the real thing.
