Furthermore, in some locations along the eclipse path, the researchers noticed a brief spike in the number of animals flying at low altitudes during totality. According to the study, this spike, which only occurred during totality and was too weak to impact the mean of the data, “could indicate that insects have a more immediate and explicit reaction to darkness.”Interestingly, the idea that insects strongly and quickly change their behavior during a total solar eclipse is one that is supported by another study just published last month in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America . In the study, researchers from the University of Missouri organized a slew of citizen scientists and elementary school classrooms to acoustically monitor how totality influenced the behavior of bees.The results were astoundingly clear: Bees stopped buzzing during the total solar eclipse.“We anticipated, based on the smattering of reports in the literature, that bee activity would drop as light dimmed during the eclipse and would reach a minimum at totality,” said lead author Candace Galen , in a press release . “But, we had not expected that the change would be so abrupt, that bees would continue flying up until totality and only then stop completely. It was like ‘lights out’ at summer camp! That surprised us.”“The eclipse gave us an opportunity to ask whether the novel environmental context — mid-day, open skies — would alter the bees’ behavior response to dim light and darkness,” explained Galen. “As we found, complete darkness elicits the same behavior in bees, regardless of timing or context. And that’s new information about bee cognition.”Although there was a 40-year hiatus between the previous two total solar eclipses in the continental U.S., fortunately, Americans don’t have to wait nearly as long for the next. On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will make its way up through Texas, slide across the heart of the country, and end in Maine — and countless researchers are sure to again monitor how the eclipse affects wildlife all over the United States.