Solar eclipse 2025: How animals react to sudden darkness during solar eclipse

The last solar eclipse of 2025 will be gracing the skies on September 21st. A partial one, the eclipse will be visible in the southern hemisphere to places such as Australia, Antarctica, the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. During a partial solar eclipse, only 85% of the sun will be obscured in some places by the moon, leading to a sudden darkness in some areas. While humans are aware of the concept and are prepared for the event, for animals, an eclipse comes as a surprise. How do they react? Find out below!

A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly between the Sun and the Earth, and the Moon casts a shadow on Earth, blocking the sunlight completely. However, during a partial solar eclipse a part of the sun is still visible in some areas. On Sunday, the solar eclipse will begin at 10.59 pm IST on Sunday night, reach its peak at 1.11 am IST early on Monday, and end at 3.23 am IST.

For most animals, the structure of their day depends on the light and dark cycles which guide them as to when they should sleep, eat or breed. Of all the cosmic events solar eclipses cause the biggest change in animal behaviour. Animals that are active during the day, get puzzled and begin performing nighttime activities, whereas the nocturnal ones think they've overslept.

According to a study published in the Environmental Science Journal for Teens, 13 out of 17 types of animals act differently during an eclipse. While most animals adapted to evening behaviour, some showed anxiety and two showed novel behaviours. Animals like the African elephant and birds like the cockatoo, lapwing and tawny frogmouth showed evening behaviour in the form of grouping, heading to their sleep location and increased movement. Baboon and American flamingo showed anxiety in the form of pacing, swaying, high movement and noise. Gorilla, lorikeets, giraffe and Komodo dragon portrayed both behaviours.

According to Liz Aguilar, a PhD candidate in biology in the University of Indiana's evolution, ecology, and behaviour program, animals display different behaviour during the eclipse. Birds that depend on light for movement such as crows, gulls and sparrows are seen to alight on trees and go silent. Dogs might cower and exhibit fearful behaviour, whereas bees may return to their hives and hordes and cows may move back to the stable. In wild herds, horses may also group and begin shaking their heads and tails, an act known as "photic head shaking" which is typically done when horses are exposed to bright sunlight, something completely opposite from the eclipse.

While spiders begin to break down their webs, something they do at the end of the day. Once the eclipse moves on, they begin to rebuild them again. Hippos in Zimbabwe were seen leaving the rivers and heading towards their nocturnal feeding grounds, only to abort the mission once the eclipse disappeared midway. According to a 2020 paper published in the journal Animals, cowering and other expressions of anxiety were also seen in baboons, gorillas, giraffes, flamingos, parrots and lorikeets. Another research reported in the American Journal of Primatology shared how chimpanzees in the Yerkes Primate Research Center climbed the highest point of a climbing structure and looked at the sky, until it brightened again, during an annular eclipse on May 30, 1984.