{"id":526183,"date":"2026-06-30T17:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/526183\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T17:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:26:11","slug":"peculiar-bat-behavior-revealed-in-a-400-year-old-painting-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/526183\/","title":{"rendered":"Peculiar Bat Behavior Revealed in a 400-Year-Old Painting : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

For more than 400 years, an oil painting titled Air by Flemish master Jan Brueghel the Elder has been hiding a scientific secret about bats<\/a> and their nighttime feeding behavior \u2013 and we’ve only just spotted it.<\/p>\n

The painting depicts dozens of bat and bird species, but in amongst the menagerie is a recognizable noctule bat (of the genus Nyctalus), holding a bird in its mouth.<\/p>\n

This is very unusual behavior for a bat, and it wasn’t until 2025 that scientists confirmed<\/a> that greater noctule bats (Nyctalus lasiopterus) do indeed snack on migratory passerines<\/a> (or perching birds), whilst flying in mid-air.<\/p>\n

\"AAir by Jan Brueghel the Elder, with the three bats highlighted. (Romero-Vidal et al., PNAS, 2026)<\/p>\n

That discovery relied on advanced 3D biologging tags and a battery of acoustic, altitude, and movement monitoring equipment. <\/p>\n

Back in 1611, Jan Brueghel the Elder apparently revealed the same behavior with oil on canvas, reports a team of researchers from Spain in PNAS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Several versions of Air were produced \u2013 by Brueghel or apprentices \u2013 and only the version analyzed here includes the scene of noctule predation,” write<\/a> the researchers in their published paper.<\/p>\n

“Yet the mere depiction of this now well-known predation phenomenon centuries before the advent of modern biologging or ultrasound detectors constitutes a remarkable fact.”<\/p>\n

While the bird-snacking tendencies of greater noctule bats were only confirmed last year, the evidence has been building for a couple of decades \u2013 including the discovery<\/a> of robin and blue tit feathers in the poop of N. lasiopterus bats.<\/p>\n

\"ABat likely to be a greater noctule (Nyctalus lasiopterus) with a bird in its mouth. (Romero-Vidal et al., PNAS, 2026)<\/p>\n

Passerines are the largest order of birds, and the bats grab them during migratory flights at night, biting off their wings and chewing on their meal for up to 20 minutes \u2013 all while staying airborne. <\/p>\n

Only three bat species<\/a> have been found to eat birds, and only N. Iasiopterus is known to do it on the wing.<\/p>\n

There is the question of how Brueghel knew about this behavior, carried out at high altitude in the dead of night. The researchers suggest that he might have seen a rare instance of it happening in the day, or been told about it by someone else.<\/p>\n

Bird feathers in bat droppings<\/a> could conceivably have been noticed as far back as the 17th century.<\/p>\n

“We acknowledge interpretations of historical artworks must be cautious, particularly in the case of allegorical paintings, which often incorporated symbolic elements,” write<\/a> the researchers.<\/p>\n

“However, the fact that a noctule bat, and no other bat species, is represented in the scene suggests an observational inspiration rather than purely symbolic convention.”<\/p>\n

\"Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n

The size, shape, and color used in the painting give the bat away as coming from the Nyctalus genus, though identifying the bird it has in its jaws is trickier \u2013 it is clearly of the passerine type, though.<\/p>\n

As for the rest of the painting, held at the Mus\u00e9e des Beaux-Arts de Lyon in France, it depicts the Greek muse Urania<\/a>, linked to astronomy and astrology. The gods Apollo and Diana can also be seen in the distance.<\/p>\n

“The painting represents more than 60 species, including nearly 40 recognizable native European bird species, at least 14 exotic ones, and a few representatives of domestic taxa,” write<\/a> the researchers.<\/p>\n

The bat secret hiding in Air was found via a systematic review of historical art featuring birds<\/a> and mammals \u2013 and the researchers are confident that there are more discoveries like this to be made.<\/p>\n

Museums and art galleries across the world are continuing to digitize their collections at a large scale, meaning they can be more easily reviewed by human experts and electronic scanning tools.<\/p>\n

Related: This Famous Van Gogh Painting Features Astonishingly Accurate Physics<\/a><\/p>\n

“As the digitization of art collections accelerates and analytical tools continue to advance, the value of these sources to provide valuable data \u2013 previously difficult to extract and often overlooked \u2013 and complement modern research approaches will notably increase,” write<\/a> the researchers.<\/p>\n

The research has been published in PNAS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was fact-checked by Rebecca Dyer<\/a> and edited by Carly Cassella<\/a>. While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, please let us know<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For more than 400 years, an oil painting titled Air by Flemish master Jan Brueghel the Elder has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,2209,82,263],"class_list":["post-526183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-msft-content","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}