Recording Animal Activity Before, During and After the Eclipse

Eclipse. From Wikipedia.

Across the world people have been recording the reactions of animals to the eclipse. Pets, animals in zoos, and animals, in the wild. Casual observers and anecdotal reports, citizen observations. Careful analytical studies.

My summary is as follows:

Nocturnal activities

Creatures of habit react to darkness as normal. Many creatures think it is night time so they show bedtime behaviours such as going back to bed or home ready for bedtime and sleep. 

Some of them chirp as they would do at dusk, birds, and insects. When it goes completely dark they go silent.

A few organized groups which have leaders and guardians and fighters and are intelligent, keep watch, group lookouts, either out of curiosity, or presumably alert for possible danger. These include gibbons and champanzees (not sure I remembered the right species - better check) which climb trees for a better view of the sky. (Watching for activity, changes, enemies, invaders, space ships, eagles, hail stones, whatever?)

The giraffes in Dallas zoo race about.  They were surrounded by excited humans. That was taken into account by scientists, who compared activity the day before and the day after an eclipse.

Some are destructive. Spiders destroy their webs. They stop hunting for food. (Is this just packing up and moving on?)

The last fun fact is the Galapagos tortoises which start mating. Evolutionists think this is to procreate before disaster, like soldiers' farewell. But I think the explanation is simpler. Animals which copulate at night in privacy just think it's an opportunity, not realiszng that humans have set up cameras. (To be humorous and anthropomorphic, maybe one says, I think we are being watched. The other replies, No, dear, take no notice.)

I was interested to read how much effort had to be put into observation. To find out whether behavious was different, scientific observers compared data from previous eclipses with later ones, from one area to another, and from previous days and later days with the days of the eclipse, to be sure that behaviour was not simply usual in high summer.

Some kinds of siders destroy webs. The next question is, are any of these behaviours bad for the animals or us, or good for us. 

Protecting Animals and Wildlife and Zoo Animals From Eclipses

Can we take action to help animals, to survive, to be stress free? (Like keeping pets indoors during Fireworks Night in the UK and New Year's Eve Fireworks worldwide.)  

Does stress affect pregnant animals? Should we keep them indoors, to protect the pregnancy? Or play soothing music? Or keep lights on?

Do the primates damage their eyes looking at the sun? Can we protect them?

Imitating Eclipses

Or could we simulate an eclipse to encourage endangered tortoises to mate?. 

Or to get rid of unwanted spiders? Or encourage them to build new webs?

 Useful Website

https://

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7222787/

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