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During the Great American Eclipse in 2017, zoo animals surprised researchers by acting strangely – the giraffes gathered and broke into a gallop, the Galápagos tortoises began to mate, and the gorillas began to prepare for bed.
These strange behaviors were just a few of several anomalies that scientists noticed at the Riverbank Zoo and Garden in Columbia, South Carolina, during the historic solar event in the United States, according to a report in March 2020.
“Giraffes are kind of sensitive, they don’t run much. When they run, it’s because they’re running from a predator or something like that,” said lead study author Dr. Adam Hartstone-Rose, a professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
“It was kind of amazing and mind-blowing,” he said. Animal keepers at the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere also documented giraffes frolicking during brief moments in 2017 when the sky darkened in the middle of the day.
With the upcoming solar eclipse on April 8, the researchers plan to continue their past study at another zoo located within the path of totality. That’s the swath of Mexico, the United States and Canada that the moon’s shadow will cross, obscuring the sun for three or four minutes at geographic points along the way.
And you can help scientists unlock the mysteries of these unusual behaviors. While many people prepare to look to the sky for the dazzling event, others may want to take a few minutes to watch the critters in their own backyard, said Hartstone-Rose, who one of the lead Solar Eclipse Safari investigators, citizen. a project that aims to collect observations from people observing the eclipse across the entire path.
Take part in solving animal mysteries
Hartstone-Rose plans to bring a team of graduate student researchers to the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas, who will experience the solar eclipse on April 8 from approximately 12:22 pm to 3:01 pm CT, and the full minute happening for almost. 2 ½ minutes at 1:40 pm CT, according to NASA. The researchers will study certain animals to determine if they repeat the same odd behaviors. But members of the public can also help with their own research.
And it won’t just be regular people watching a zoo. The citizen project invites observation from all kinds of environments, including cities with pigeons and squirrels, mountain ecosystems with woodland critters, farms with livestock, and more.
“It could be all kinds of things. We’re hoping to even find kids watching their dogs in their backyard and seeing if their dogs behave interestingly during the eclipse,” said Hartstone-Rose.
The path of totality passes over more than a dozen US states, but even someone not directly in the path will likely feel some percentage of the sun being covered by the moon. Hartstone-Rose is interested in reports from across North America to determine if some animals only respond to a certain percentage of solar coverage, he said.
“It’s a project that anyone anywhere on the path of wholeness, or even not on the path of wholeness, could do using our protocols and add data to our study, and help us gain a broader understanding of the how animals behave during the eclipse,” he said. .
But that’s not the only way citizen scientists can get involved. You could also participate in NASA’s Eclipse Soundscape Project. The space agency will collect public observations of animal behavior as well as human reactions to the eclipse through multi-sensory written reports – such as what the observer saw, heard or felt – and audio recordings of the environment during the eclipse.
Total solar eclipses are rare events that provide scientists with rare opportunities to collect data on behavioral responses to the phenomenon, said Kelsey Perrett, communications coordinator for the Eclipse Soundscapes Project. The next total solar eclipse visible across the contiguous United States will not be visible until August 2044.
Why do animals react to the eclipse?
Reports of animals acting strangely during a solar eclipse go back centuries, according to NASA, but the causes and effects of the unusual behaviors are not fully understood.
The researchers studied 17 species during the 2017 event and found behavioral responses to the eclipse in about 75% of the zoo animals observed, with most showing evening activities or behaviors that indicate anxiety.
Hartstone-Rose believes there are two possible reasons for the animals’ reactions to the eclipse. At first, the animals were responding to the natural light fading and the temperature dropping as the sun went behind the moon. Secondly, the animals were responding to the excitement and excitement of the zookeepers while the eclipse was happening.
The lunar interruption of daylight caused by a total solar eclipse is likely to affect animals because of what is known as the circadian rhythm, the 24-hour internal biological clock that tells a person or animal how to respond to the amount of light they are getting, said Dr. Bryan Pijanowski, professor of forestry and natural resources and director of the Center for Global Soundscapes at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He was not involved in the March 2020 study.
“Most animals respond to (the dimming of the light from the eclipse) in a way where it’s like, ‘Okay, it’s time to sit down and relax and go to sleep.’ … And then there are the nocturnal animals that suddenly say, ‘oh, it’s time for me to wake up and be active,’” he said.
A better understanding of how animals respond to the eclipse could spur more research into how light pollution affects animals, especially insects, said Pijanowski, who is part of the scientific advisory board for the Soundscapes Project.
How have animals reacted during eclipse events in the past?
The most comprehensive study occurred nearly 100 years ago, when a team of scientists led by entomologist William M. Wheeler collected nearly 500 observations from the public. For example, people told the researchers that during the total eclipse of August 1932 they noticed crickets chirping as if it were night and bees trying to return to their hives. The study, published in March 1935, also included observations of mammals, birds and cold-blooded vertebrates.
Researchers have made additional observations of specific animal reactions over the years during solar eclipse events, including studies of captive baboons that increased grooming behaviors, brown pelicans that began roosting, colonial weaving spiders that left their webs and certain amphibians that evolved. more vocal.
Hartstone-Rose plans to station researchers near the giraffe enclosure in April to see if the galloping behavior occurs again and hopes that those stationed at other zoos will do the same.
Some of the other animals the research team will be scrutinizing include reptiles – particularly turtles, to see if the slow-moving giants become more active – as well as primates, such as bonobos, who tend to have sex and they are under stress, said Hartstone-Rose.
Watching the eclipse at the zoo
The researchers must be aware of the limitations of crowd participation that affect the results of observing animal behavior at the Fort Worth Zoo this year, Hartstone-Rose said. But he hopes that there will be plenty of other opinions from people who are not close to the crowds.
“It’s the nature of the beast. Eclipses are very exciting. We don’t want to do anything that dampens people’s excitement during the eclipse,” he said.
The zookeepers will also contribute data by observing animals within their area of expertise, said John Griffioen, assistant director of animal and conservation programs at the Fort Worth Zoo.
The zoo’s highly vocal animals that often communicate with each other, such as elephants, flamingos and parrots, will be of particular interest, Griffioen said, to determine whether the animals become quieter or louder as a result.
In addition to the Fort Worth Zoo, several zoos across the path of totality have announced events for the public to view the eclipse, including the Buffalo Zoo in New York, the Little Rock Zoo in Arkansas, the Toledo Zoo in Ohio and the Indianapolis Zoo. .
How you can help NASA with research
The Eclipse Soundscapes Project started last October with the annular eclipse, also known as the “ring of fire”. More than 800 people participated in the project, Perrett said. The space agency is expecting much larger numbers for the 2024 total solar eclipse — nearly 2,500 people have already signed up, she said.
The project was inspired by Wheeler’s 1935 citizen study, according to the website. The space agency’s researchers are particularly interested in studying crickets and other vocal nocturnal insects to see if they start chirping when the moon eclipses the sun, Perrett said.
The NASA project is open to all volunteer participants, including those who are blind or have low vision, according to the news release. In addition, an animal does not need to be within line of sight to take good observations, as hearing is an important sense during the eclipse, Pijanowski said.
“If we get even a handful of people to go out and experience the eclipse in a new way, we will consider it a success,” Perrett said in an email. “When it comes to details, the more the merrier. The more people participate, the better we can answer our questions about how solar eclipses affect life on Earth.”
Solar Project Eclipse Safari and Eclipse Soundscapes will collect public comments through forms found on their respective websites. But if you want to treat yourself to a “once-in-a-lifetime” solar event, that’s fine, too, Hartstone-Rose said.
“(During a total solar eclipse) you have so many different ways that the light is spreading, so you have these beautiful colors of orange and purple and green. … The wind speed drops and becomes very calm. And so everything happens within a very short period of time, all at the same time,” Pijanowski said. “Being in the middle of a total solar eclipse is kind of an amazing human sensory experience.”
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