During Monday’s full eclipse, the moon slipped right in front of the sun, entirely blocking it.
The resulting twilight, with only the sun’s outer atmosphere or corona visible, was long enough for birds and other animals to fall silent, and for planets and stars to pop out.
At the Fort Worth Zoo, Adam Hartstone-Rose, a researcher from North Carolina State University, said most animals remained relatively calm.
One gorilla climbed atop a pole and stood there for several seconds, likely a sign of vigilance.
“Nobody was doing sort of bonkers behaviour,” he said.
Some daytime zoo animals were observed getting ready for bed, while nocturnal creatures, such as owls and ringtails, began to stir, according to researchers stationed at the Fort Worth Zoo and Dallas Zoo in Texas.
As Dallas Zoo slipped into total darkness, a jolt of well animal energy seemed to shoot through the grounds.
Just before the moon covered the sun for almost four minutes, a young giraffe and its mother galloped around the enclosure.
The North American solar eclipse in pictures
The zebras joined in the chase as well.
Elephants grouped together and appeared to head back to the area where they sleep.
Flamingos packed together in the middle of a pond in their habitat.
Primates apparently also thought it was bed time.
Just before total darkness, an ostrich laid an egg and hovered over it for a time protecting it.
Zoo officials say it’s not clear if the moment was caused by the eclipse but that the timing was certainly curious they said.
Lisa Van Sett, Associate Curator at Dallas Zoo said the animals’ reactions “exceeded her expectations”.
“There was a lot more activity than I expected to see out of the animals,” she said.
Animal experts say the sudden darkness triggered a natural reaction among many of the animals.
“At night time predators go out a lot more. And so they have to kind of huddle together to be safety in numbers and in case something’s coming. So they went into that instinct pretty quickly,” Van Slett said.
Texas Parks and Wildlife officials teamed up with NASA to set up acoustic recording devices to monitor the sounds of animals in the wild.
But not all animals were flustered or impressed by the total eclipse.
Tobogo the giraffe mostly walked around, unfazed ready to start chewing on the lettuce the humans feed him when the sun came back.
It is unclear what researchers around the USA found as they studied animal behaviour during the eclipse.
