Historical art can hide scientific secrets

In the upper right corner of his 1611 painting “Air,” Flemish artist Jan Brueghel the Elder drew a bat holding a songbird in its jaws. While the painting might have been an allegory, the bat’s behavior was real — though scientists would not officially observe the behavior for another 400 years. Artists are often keen observers of nature.

Whether mimicking the reality in still lifes and landscapes or imagining a composite world filled with symbolism and fantasy, some artists show real biological phenomena — from predator-prey interactions to insect metamorphoses. Working closely with art historians, some researchers are spotting scientific insights in artistic works, often reflecting the deep interests of their creators. For Pedro Romero-Vidal, an ecologist at Doñana Biological Station in Seville, Spain, the bat in the Brueghel painting was “completely unexpected.” It was a greater noctule bat (Nyctalus lasiopterus) carrying a bird.

While the bat usually dines on insects, the artist may have heard about the bird-eating behavior during visits to the bat’s home range in Italy. But scientists would document evidence of bird-snatching from the bats’ fecal remains only in the early 2000s and confirm the behavior by listening in on songbird snacking in 2025. The bat finding was something of a side quest, says Romero-Vidal, who published the analysis earlier this year in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

He and colleagues have been scanning historic paintings for “monkeys and parrots, since these animals were often transported from distant places, and we can glean interesting [ecological] information from their appearance in paintings from different centuries.” Many paintings fit the bill. Repeated depiction means the artists at least knew about the critters, either by observing menageries or hearing about them from other people. Jan Brueghel the Elder wasn’t the only artist painting ecological folk knowledge ahead of scientific ideas.

Others, such as German-born artist Maria Sibylla Merian, who was active in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, used detailed still life paintings to show ecological relationships. Merian’s work influenced people like Carl Linnaeus, who’s considered the father of modern taxonomy. In 2025, the museum put on an exhibition of the works of Rachel Ruysch, another late 17th and early 18th century artist.

While preparing, Knaap and another Museum of Fine Arts historian Christopher Atkins wanted to collaborate with researchers, knowing the potential scientific importance of the works. So they turned to biologist Charles Davis of Harvard University. Davis was immediately impressed with Ruysch’s botanical knowledge.