While many in the northeastern portion of the U.S. battled bitter cold, high winds, and buckets of snow, those living in the southeast part of the country also faced cooler than usual temperatures, so much so that iguanas are falling out of trees in Florida.
“A cold morning…not as cold as our friends to the north dealing with a blizzard…but we have our own lizards to worry about,” the National Weather Service, Miami branch, tweeted. “Did you really think with the coldest temperatures in over a decade, we would not warn you about falling Iguanas?”
Following up on the NWS tweet, Reuters reported on January 30 that immobilized iguanas could fall out of trees due to freezing temperatures across the region.
According to the National Weather Service, temperatures in South Florida dropped to 25 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday morning, with highs expected to stay in the upper 50s and low 60s that day.Â
“Their bodies start to shut down where they start to lose their functions, and so they are up in the trees sleeping, and when it gets so cold they lose that ability to hang on and so they do fall out of trees a lot,” Stacey Cohen, a zoologist at the Palm Beach Zoo, told WPBF News.
The last time a similar cold snap hit South Florida was in 2010, and Cohen claims that some iguanas died as a result.
Iguanas in Florida can grow to be over four feet long, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The green iguana, the Mexican spinytail iguana, and the black spinytail iguana are three members of the iguana family that have established themselves in South Florida and are occasionally seen in other parts of the state.
NBC2 in Florida reports that only a few calls were made to city officials in Sanibel about dead lizards. Local iguana trapper Chris Harlow told NBC he went to all the spots around the city where he expected to see downed lizards, but all in all, it was a quiet morning for him, and he only responded to a few calls.
