At 2:41 pm on Aug. 21, 2017 the greater Columbia area experienced the longest period of totality of any city on the East Coast, slightly more than 2 minutes and 30 seconds of total darkness.
More than two-thirds of the animals exhibited changed behavior.
Gorillas: Marched all together to be let in for the evening and were kind of perplexed, like Why arent you letting us in? Hartstone-Rose said.
Flamingos: All of the adults gathered around the perimeter and clumped around the juveniles and the babies, he said.
Giraffes: Some of the zoo's herd began running around their enclosure, only calming down when the sun came back.
Bears: Couldn't care less. One of them lifted his head during the eclipse, but they basically couldnt be bothered to react, he said.
Galapagos tortoises: The Riverbanks zoo has a group of 35 of the slow-moving giants which can reach 900 pounds and live for more than 150 years. During the peak of the eclipse, they started breeding.
For 2024, Hartstone-Rose is scaling up animal observations across the country. There will be studies at multiple zoos in the path of the totality, which will allow a larger number of animals to be observed. Hell be stationed at Texas' Fort Worth Zoo.
Given what they found with the tortoises, hes curious to see what the bonobos will do.
Theyre very sexual animals, he said. When they get stressed out, their reaction is to have sex. Im very curious to see if they react by mating."