Scientists Just Learned That This Bat Eats Birds Midflight. A Renaissance Painter May Have Known About It Hundreds of Years Ago

Last fall, scientists reported the first known recordings of greater noctule bats hunting and feasting on songbirds during night flights. But a 17th-century artwork by Jan Brueghel the Elder seems to depict the species flying with feathered prey in its mouth

Soumya Sagar | Correspondent

July 9, 2026 12:17 p.m.

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Last year, scientists presented chilling evidence that helped solve a long-standing murder mystery. Europe’s largest bat species—the greater noctule—had been suspected of feasting on birds, but no one knew exactly how they caught and ate their prey. This past fall, a team reported the first known recordings of the bats nabbing, dismembering and chomping on migrating songbirds during night flights.

But it turns out that the recent revelation for scientists may have been recognized hundreds of years ago by a Northern Renaissance painter.

The 1611 oil painting “Air” by Flemish artist Jan Brueghel the Elder features more than 60 animal species that can fly. One of them, depicted in the air, has a bird in its mouth and closely resembles the greater noctule (Nyctalus lasiopterus), scientists reported on June 29 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery hints that the airborne bird-hunting habits of the bat species were already known in 17th-century Europe. However, not everyone is convinced that the bat is, indeed, a greater noctule.

“We were quite excited,” says Miguel Clavero, a study co-author and an ecologist at the Doñana Biological Station in Spain, to Smithsonian magazine. “Our minds were blown thinking that Brueghel had actually painted a noctule preying on a songbird.”

Clavero and one of the other co-authors, Pedro Romero-Vidal, also an ecologist at Doñana Biological Station, analyze old paintings to gain insights into historical wildlife trade. They try to identify all the animal species that are portrayed with parrots or monkeys, because these two types of animals were among the most trafficked and commonly held in captivity.

Brueghel’s paintings are a treasure trove of different fauna. His artwork “Air” depicts the Greek muse of astronomy, Urania, holding an armillary sphere amidst a swirling vortex of birds—and a few bats—with the gods Apollo and Diana driving their chariots of the sun and moon in the background. The upper right corner of the painting shows a large bat soaring through the sky. It has a long reddish-brown coat, long wings and short, broad, rounded ears characteristic of the noctule genus. It carries a small, feathered corpse in its mouth.

When the researchers spotted the depiction, they suspected that Brueghel was aware of the greater noctule’s knack for snacking on birds midflight. So, they showed it to two bat experts from the group that recorded evidence of the bat species’ penchant for catching feathered fliers, who identified the painted predator as a greater noctule.  

This type of bat was rare in Brueghel’s homeland of what is now Belgium, so it’s likely that he encountered the species during his travels in Italy, according to the researchers. Witnessing this nocturnal predation in broad daylight, as shown in the painting, seems unlikely, though autumn migrations can trigger rare daytime hunts in closely related common noctules. What probably happened, the team says, is that Brueghel either found or heard about songbird feathers left in a greater noctule’s wake and let his artistic license do the rest.

“I really liked the study,” Damien Farine, a behavioral ecologist at the Australian National University who was not involved in the research, tells Smithsonian. “I think it’s very likely that the artist correctly depicted the right bat species accurately doing this interesting behavior.”

He emphasizes, however, that historical artwork requires careful scrutiny and relying on historical depictions of wildlife is notoriously risky. For example, early European illustrators portrayed Australian fauna incorrectly, as they had never seen these animals alive and had to use their imagination and knowledge of European animals to create their images, Farine says.

Bat experts Gianna Dondini and Simone Vergari of the Nature and Archaeological Museum of Pistoia Apennine in Italy, who were not involved in the study, call the new research “original, engaging and a strong example of fruitful art–science dialogue” in an email to Smithsonian. But they have some reservations regarding its conclusions.

Although Dondini and Vergari agree that the “morphological cues … are consistent with N. lasiopterus,” they also caution that “compatibility is not confirmation.” They believe that the bat depicted could be a common noctule (N. noctula) and that the allegorical nature of the painting impairs definitive identification. Still, they agree with the study authors that the “inclusion of a noctule carrying a passerine suggests the painter (or his sources) had encountered or heard about such a rare behavior.”

Clavero acknowledges that the features would also fit a common noctule. “But the size of the animal relative to the bird prey,” he says, “suggests Brueghel did paint a greater noctule.”

Soumya Sagar | Read More

Soumya Sagar is a former medical researcher who conducted research in neurosurgery at some of the top hospitals in the U.S. His work has appeared in New Scientist, Science, Chemical & Engineering News and Live Science. He is a passionate science writer and a voracious consumer of knowledge, especially trivia. He enjoys writing about medicine, animals, archaeology, climate change and history. Animals have a special place in his heart. He also loves quizzing, visiting historical sites, reading Victorian literature and watching noir movies.