It was like, momentarily walking into the classic comedy Night
at the Museum,
a glimpse into the secret lives of animals at the
Dallas Zoo.
When humans aren't around to watch,
Zebra started chasing him. And then the ostriches got into
the mix as well.
Just as the zoo slipped into total darkness,
a jolt of, well, animal energy seemed to shoot through
the grounds.
The moment mesmerized Lisa Van Sleet,
a curator of mammals at the Dallas Zoo.
So did the total eclipse day.
Meet your expectations. In my expectations today,
there was a lot more activity than I expected to
see out of the animal just before total Darkness and
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. Guinea fowl suddenly crowed wildly.
The birds are getting louder.
Just before the moon covered the sun for almost 4
minutes,
a young giraffe and its mother galloped around the enclosure.
The zebras joined in the chase as well.
Here and around the country,
elephants group 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 bedtime.
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.
At this doggy daycare in the Dallas area,
this group of dogs seem to stop confused by the
sudden darkness when the sun returned.
The dog started playing around again.
Another video captured a cat wanting to come inside its
home when darkness struck at the Toledo Zoo.
A polar bear didn't seem to care about all the
fuss,
nonchalantly dove into the water before the sun disappeared.
Texas Parks and Wildlife officials teamed up with NASA to
set up these acoustic recording devices to monitor the sounds
of animals in the wild.
But not all animals were flustered or impressed by the
total eclipse.
To Bogo, the giraffe mostly walked around unfazed.
Ready to start chewing on the lettuce the humans feed
them when the sun came back.