Here’s why animals behave strangely during lunar and solar eclipses.

For most animals, the structure of their day – and indeed their years – depends on the light-dark cycle. These regular and rhythmic cycles in the length of days tell animals when they should be foraging, when they should be asleep, when it’s time to migrate and when it’s time to breed. Animals can tell all this from how many hours of daylight they experience, but the moon’s cycles also strongly influence their behavior.
The lunar synodic cycle – the moon’s regular journey from full moon to full moon again over 28 nights – causes changes in the Earth’s magnetic field, the moon’s gravitational pull on Earth, and light levels at night. Many species can detect this and use it to synchronize their breeding. Mass spawning in corals sees tens of millions of eggs released at once on reefs to coincide with full or new moons. But what happens to animals when the moon or the sun does something unusual or unexpected, such as an eclipse?