Total solar eclipse: millions watched rare spectacle as moon blocked sun in Mexico, US and Canada – as it happened

A partial eclipse has reached Eagle Pass, Texas, one of the first in the country to experience the phenomenon.

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A partial solar eclipse is now visible in Mazatlán, Mexico, where it will reach totality in the next hour at 2:07pm ET (12:07pm local time).

Totality will last for four minutes and 17 seconds.

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The US National Weather Service’s prediction center has issued its final forecast update before the eclipse in the country this afternoon.

In the wake of previous eclipses – like one we saw in 2017 – hospitals around the US were preparing to be inundated with people arriving at their emergency departments to see if they had sustained eye damage as a result of watching the eclipse.

Doctors across the country also reported a huge volume of calls requesting information about the possible long-term effects of having stared at the eclipse.

Here’s a simple test to find out if you damaged your eyes during the solar eclipse.

The moon lines up perfectly between the Earth and the sun in a total eclipse over the South Pacific, AP is reporting.

A partial solar eclipse is now visible in Mazatlán, on Mexico’s Pacific coast.

Millions of people are gathering across 15 US states and in Mexico and Canada in anticipation of the total solar eclipse.

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Most of the things that animal behaviorists saw during the 2017 US total eclipse were related to circadian responses, but teams also observed a lot of anxiety-related behavior, said Adam Hartstone-Rose, professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University, who will be leading a team of researchers and volunteer observers on Monday at the Fort Worth zoo in Texas.

Obviously the animals that are going to their bed area, they think that evening has fallen. But the anxiety one is a bit more mysterious, we don’t know the cause. It could be the animals are aware of some kind of disparity going on. If it all of a sudden seems dark, my dog, who is very food motivated, would worry we’d forgotten a meal for him, so that might be going through some of these animals’ heads.

The most likely reason is the strangest animals of all we observed in 2017 were the people, doing crazy things, and I think that probably the animals might be having a reaction to the exuberance that the people display.

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Also being watched on Monday, he said, were “some animals we think might do something interesting”, such as the Fort Worth zoo’s bonobo apes.

Along with chimpanzees, they’re our closest relatives, and are strange, fascinating and very cool apes. When bonobos have tension in the group, they also have sexual responses to that. They alleviate tension with all sorts of sexual behavior, including homosexual behavior.

Not every scientist’s attention will be focused on the skies during Monday’s solar eclipse.

Animal behaviorists at several zoos across its pathway will be watching creatures great and small for their reactions to the sudden, unexpected darkness.

The research is an extension of their observations from 2017’s most recent total eclipse in the US, when usually sedentary tortoises started rutting, frantic giraffes ran around aimlessly, and siamang gibbons embarked on an abrupt and tumultuous chorus of screams and barks.

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A team of researchers and volunteer observers on Monday at the Fort Worth zoo in Texas will watch many of the species they did seven years ago when the eclipse passed over Riverbanks zoo in Columbia, South Carolina, the results of which were published in a 2020 paper co-authored by Adam Hartstone-Rose for the National Library of Medicine.

As well as the amorous gopher tortoises, they recorded a male gorilla charging a glass enclosure, flamingos that clustered in an unusually tight bunch, and lorikeets that began chirping loudly and swooping en masse.

Joe Biden has urged Americans to watch the solar eclipse safely.

The US president is traveling to Wisconsin today to announce details of a new plan to ease student loan debt.

The vice-president, Kamala Harris, is expected to view the eclipse with students in Philadelphia.

The solar eclipse will make landfall on Mexico’s Pacific coast at 11:07am PT.

As the moon’s shadow travels northeast, it will cross into Texas at 1:27 CT and sweep across more than a dozen US states, ending in Maine at 3:35pm ET and into Canada. The eclipse will exit continental North America from Newfoundland at 5:16pm NT.

Here are some times for the path of totality:

Dallas, Texas totality: 1:40pm to 1:44pm CDT

Idabel, Oklahoma totality: 1:45pm to 1:49pm CT

Little Rock, Arkansas totality: 1:51pm to 2:00pm CDT

Poplar Bluff, Missouri totality: 1:56pm to 2:00pm CT

Carbondale, Illinois totality: 1:59pm to 2:03pm CT

Evansville, Indiana totality: 2:02pm to 2:05pm CDT

Cleveland, Ohio totality: 3:13pm to 3:17pm ET

Erie, Pennsylvania totality: 3:16pm to 3:20pm ET

Niagara Falls, New York totality: 3:18pm to 3:22pm ET

Burlington, Vermont totality: 3:26pm to 3:29pm ET

Lancaster, New Hampshire totality: 3:27pm to 3:30pm ET

Caribou, Maine totality: 3:32pm to 3:34pm ET