Will turtles start acting romantic when a total solar eclipse turns day into night? Will giraffes gallop? Will monkeys sing strange notes? Researchers will be on hand to watch how the routines of animals at the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas are disrupted when the skies darken on April 8. They previously discovered other strange animal behavior at a South Carolina zoo in complete darkness in 2017.

“We were surprised that many of the animals were doing surprising things,” said North Carolina State University researcher Adam Hartstone-Rose, who led the observations published in the journal. animals. Although there have been many observations of animals behaving strangely during historical eclipses, it is only in recent years that scientists have begun to carefully study the changing behavior of wild, domestic and zoo animals.

Seven years ago, the Galapagos tortoises at the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina, “generally did absolutely nothing all day… they all started breeding during the peak of the eclipse,” Hartstone-Rose said. The reason for this behavior is still unclear.

A mated pair of siamang (gibbons), which usually call to each other in the morning, sang unusual melodies during the noon eclipse. Several male giraffes began to gallop in “obvious alarm”. Flamingos gathered around their chicks.

Researchers say the behavior of many animals is associated with early dusk. In April, Hartstone-Rose’s team plans to study similar species in Texas to see if the behavior they previously observed in South Carolina points to broader patterns. Many other zoos along the route also welcome visitors, including the zoos in Little Rock, Arkansas; Toledo, Ohio; and Indianapolis.

This year’s total solar eclipse in North America follows a different path than 2017 and occurs in a different season; It gives researchers and citizen scientists a chance to observe new habits.

“These are really high risks. We have such a short period of time to observe them, and we can’t repeat the experiment,” said Jennifer Tsuruda, an entomologist at the University of Tennessee who observed honeybee colonies during the 2017 eclipse.

The honeybees Tsuruda studied reduced their food intake during the eclipse, as they normally do at night, except for bees in the hungriest hives.

“During a solar eclipse, there is a conflict between their internal rhythms and their external environment,” said Olav Rüppell of the University of Alberta, adding that bees depend on polarized light from the sun to navigate.

Animal researcher Nate Bickford of the Oregon Institute of Technology said that “solar eclipses actually mimic short, temporary storms when the sky darkens and many animals seek shelter.”

After the 2017 eclipse, he analyzed data from tracking devices previously placed on wild species to study habitat use. Flying bald eagles change the speed and direction they travel during the eclipse, he said. So did wild horses, “possibly hiding in response to a possible storm on the open plains.”

The last total solar eclipse covering the coast in the United States occurred in late summer in August. The eclipse in April gives researchers the opportunity to ask new questions, including the potential impact on spring migration.

Most songbird species migrate at night. “When nighttime conditions are observed during the eclipse, will birds think it’s time to migrate and fly?” said Andrew Farnsworth of Cornell University.

His team plans to test this by analyzing weather radar data, which also detects the presence of flying birds, bats and insects, to see if more birds take off during the eclipse.

Indoor pets can respond just as much to what their owners are doing (whether they’re excited or uninterested in the eclipse) as to any change in the sky, said animal researcher Rafaela Lesh of the University of Arkansas.

“Dogs and cats pay a lot of attention to us outside of their internal clocks,” he said.