How to use the iNaturalist app to record weird animal behavior during the eclipse

In 2012, Elise Ricard was on an Australian beach, watching the Moon obscure the Sun in a total solar eclipse, when she noticed something weird: the birds in the rainforest behind her had fallen silent. “It was a great feeling of unity with the other forms of life on this planet,” Ricard says. “There were other living things on the planet that were responding to something celestial.”

On Monday, Americans will have the same rare opportunity to watch how the natural world reacts when the Sun goes dark. Total solar eclipses are known for making some animals go haywire, and Ricard wants people to record what they’re seeing. She works at the California Academy of Sciences, and she’s spearheading a citizen science project called Life Responds....

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