Scientists Found a Bird-Eating Bat Hidden in a 400-Year-Old Painting. Here’s Why That’s a Big Deal.
· Vice
Art, no matter how abstract or surreal, can teach us a surprising amount about ourselves, the natural world, and, as it turns out, the dietary habits of 17th-century bats. According to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a painting dating back to 1611 appears to depict a weird bat behavior that the scientific community only confirmed last year.
Visit newsbetting.club for more information.
The painting is called Air. Painted by Flemish artist Jan Brueghel the Elder in 1611, features more than 60 species of birds along with several bats. Researchers took a closer look at it using high-resolution digital imaging and found a minor detail that had been overlooked for centuries: a greater noctule bat clutching a small songbird in its mouth.
Greater noctule bats are among only a handful of bat species known to eat birds. They have been known to catch migrating songbirds in mid-air at night, bite off their wings, and eat as they fly, which I covered here on VICE this past October.
A Hidden Detail in a 1611 Painting Suggests Artists Beat Scientists to a Weird Bat Discovery
The reason I covered it this past October is that researchers didn’t know any of the Greater noctule bat’s hunting and eating habits until fairly recently. Scientists had suspected this behavior for years, but didn’t get anything close to confirmation until a team of researchers found bird feathers and bat droppings, and even then, it wasn’t confirmed until 2025 using miniature tracking devices and advanced biologging tech.
So how is it that a painter from 1611 knew something about bats that modern science couldn’t figure out until 2025?
Researchers don’t think Brueghel ever actually saw the bats hunting himself. It’s certainly possible, but the noctule is a nocturnal predator that hunts pretty high in the air. It would’ve been especially difficult for someone in 1611 to witness. The researchers think he probably heard accounts from naturalists, observed some feathers in bat droppings, or even overheard something circulating among scholars at the time.
Basically, anything but actual observation, or at least that’s what the researchers tell themselves to make themselves feel better for possibly not having observed something that a painter did back in the 17th century.
Whatever the source, the researchers argue that the artist’s depiction of the act was likely based on someone’s actual observation rather than some surprisingly scientifically accurate artistic symbolism at work.
The post Scientists Found a Bird-Eating Bat Hidden in a 400-Year-Old Painting. Here’s Why That’s a Big Deal. appeared first on VICE.