Washington Zoo residents registered alarm before quake
Residents of Washington didn't feel Tuesday's earthquake coming, but some residents of the National Zoo did. Red-ruffed lemurs sounded an alarm, apes left their food, flamingos rushed into a huddle, and a gorilla shrieked -- all before the magnitude 5.8 quake rattled nerves across the East Coast. The zoo dutifully compiled a list of "changes in animal behavior" that depicted a noisy, frantic scene in parts of the 163-acre park. Just before the ground started to shake, Iris, an orangutan, "began 'belch vocalizing' -- an unhappy/upset noise normally reserved for extreme irritation." Mandara, a gorilla, "let out a shriek and collected her baby." A flock of 64 flamingos "grouped themselves together." Alex Demas, a spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey, said animals often can detect "P waves," small seismic ripples that occur seconds before humans feel an earthquake. "That's, most of the time, what's happening when animals react before us," Demas said. "We have no evidence that animals can predict earthquakes." Although the quake may have caused a commotion, it didn't cause any structural damage to the zoo, which, like most of the District of Columbia, returned to business as usual Wednesday.
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