As the moon played hide-and-seek with the sun, visitors at the Philadelphia Zoo shifted their attention from the obscured skies to the animal enclosures, participating in a citizen science project during yesterday's rare solar event. However, it turned out that a blanket of clouds wasn't the only thing dampening the spectacle—the animals were hardly affected by the celestial shenanigans. Abrazzo, the zoo's venerable Galapagos tortoise, continued munching on grass as usual, while the African lion old-timers took the opportunity for a cozy siesta, as reported by Billy Penn.

As for the zoo's other inhabitants, Koosaka the Amur tiger wasn't too bothered either, she simply continued her routine patrol possibly wondering what all the human fuss was about and the primates—possibly lemurs—picked that moment to get into a tiff albeit a typical occurrence according to Drew, a 9-year-old visitor wrestling with excitement not only for the animals but also still jazzed from watching WrestleMania XL the night prior.

Human visitors, however, sought to squeeze every drop of experience out of the day, with many like Francesca Carendi seizing the occasion to observe the animals amidst the cosmic ballet. "It's interesting to see, how does it impact everyone?" Dawn Polansky mused to CBS News Philadelphia, reflecting a shared sense of wonder even as the eclipse hid behind Philly's cloud cover.

There was, however, a hint of responsiveness to the eclipse's fleeting darkness—though not from the beasts, rather the blooms. The tulips near the zoo's entrance clamped shut, perhaps the only living things that took a nonfigurative cue from the dimmed skies, these perceptive plants beat the animal kingdom in showing any signs of reaction to the solar sleight-of-hand. The full scope of the day's observations will be revealed in a NASA Eclipse Science Debrief, accessible to all animal and astronomy enthusiasts through a SciStarter LIVE Zoom call, which is set to illuminate the community with findings on Tuesday.