Anxiety, bedtime and mating: How animals may react to eclipse
Though millions of people are preparing to watch the total solar eclipse that will make its way across North America on Monday, the animals in that affected area — in homes, on farms, in zoos and in the wild — missed the news that the moon will block the sun, briefly turning day into night.
How they react to that swift and unexpected change of light and temperature, which in some places will last as long as 41/2 minutes, is anyone's guess.
Cows may mosey into their barns for bedtime. Flamingoes may huddle together in fear. The giant, slow-motion Galápagos tortoise may even get frisky and mate.
Circadian rhythms might take a noticeable hit, with nocturnal animals mistakenly waking up and starting their day, only to realize that, whoa, nighttime is already over. And then there will be some animals, perhaps particularly lazy domestic cats or warthogs focused on foraging, who might not give the dark sky a second thought.
“Everybody wants to see how they are going to react,” said Robert Shumaker, the chief executive and president of the Indianapolis Zoo, which will have nearly four minutes of darkness. It's one of several prominent zoos along the path of totality, an arc stretching from Texas to Maine, where researchers, animal keepers, volunteers and the public will be studying the animals' response to the eclipse.
Shumaker, an expert in animal behavior and cognition, said “most of the animals, of course, they're going to notice that there's something unusual happening.”
Most animals likely will be confused by the darkness and will start their nighttime routines, said Dr. M. Leanne Lilly, a veterinary behaviorist at Ohio State's College of Veterinary Medicine.
But the way humans react to the eclipse — looking at the sky, expressing excitement or gathering in a group — could affect domesticated animals, including dogs or cats, because pets can act strangely when their humans are acting strangely, Lilly said.
“We might be the problem,” she said with a laugh.
How animals will react to solar eclipses can only give hints of animal behavior because the relatively few studies of the topic often are conflicting. One study in 1560 cited that “birds fell to the ground.” Other studies said birds went to roost, or fell silent, or continued to sing and coo — or flew straight into houses. Dogs either barked or whimpered or did not bark or whimper.
A study of the 1932 eclipse, which was thought to be the first comprehensive research conducted on the subject and included observations from the public, explained that it received “a good deal of conflicting testimony” from people who had observed mammals. It concluded that several animals showed the strongest responses: Squirrels ran into the woods and cattle and sheep headed for their barns.
Shumaker is as curious as anyone to see what the animals will do, and in 2017, Adam Hartstone-Rose, now a professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University, tried to get some answers. Before that total solar eclipse crossed the United States, he started a formal study of animals at the Riverbanks Zoo & Garden in Columbia, South Carolina.
About three-fourths of the 17 species his team studied, including mammals, birds and reptiles, had a behavior response to the eclipse, with many thinking the change in light meant it was time to prepare for bed. A smaller group of animals, including giraffes, baboons, gorillas, flamingoes, lorikeets (a type of parrot) and one Komodo dragon, showed behavior that was out of the ordinary and could be interpreted as anxiety.