  We report the identification of a source coincident with the position of the
nearby type II-P supernova (SN) 2008bk in high quality optical and
near-infrared pre-explosion images from the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT). The
SN position in the optical and near-infrared pre-explosion images is identified
to within about +-70 and +-40 mas, respectively, using post-explosion Ks-band
images obtained with the NAOS CONICA adaptive optics system on the VLT. The
pre-explosion source detected in four different bands is precisely coincident
with SN 2008bk and is consistent with being dominated by a single point source.
We determine the nature of the point source using the STARS stellar
evolutionary models and find that its colours and luminosity are consistent
with the source being a red supergiant progenitor of SN 2008bk with an initial
mass of 8.5 +- 1.0 Msun.
