Millions of people gathered outside to watch the Sun be completely blotted out by the Moon on Monday, casting a massive shadow over much of North America.
The rare cosmological event also triggered a number of strange behaviors among animals, which were seemingly confused by the Sun setting far earlier than expected. "Our gorilla troop got up and walked to the door like it was time to go in for the night," John Griffioen, who led a team of 40 people at Fort Worth Zoo in Texas,"Two of our flocks of flamingos got much closer together," he added. "They started vocalizing a lot more, and one of them even started marching, which is a group bonding behavior.
, replying to her colleague, who recalled hearing "hootin’ and howlin'" during the eclipse. "The coyotes and the barred owl really took the cake."Scientists have long tried to study how the circadian rhythms of animals are disrupted by a brief moment of night in the middle of the day. Light is "such a huge cue that affects everything from plants to animals," Cecilia Nilsson, a behavioural ecologist at Lund University in Sweden,