January 22, 2020, 12:35 p.m.
Miami (dpa) They’re not dead at all, they’re just too cold: There is currently a threat of iguana rain in Florida. Because the cold-blooded lizards were surprised by an unusual cold spell – and at single-digit temperatures they fall frozen from the tree.
Iguanas are cold-blooded, their body temperature fluctuates with the ambient temperature. They become immobile at single-digit temperatures.
In the US state of Florida, the weather service has warned of iguanas falling from trees in the face of nightly cold.
In the heat-spoiled state in itself, temperatures of around freezing point were forecast in many places for Wednesday night. From degrees Fahrenheit in their 40s (around 4 to 9 degrees Celsius), it is possible that the animals fell from the trees.
Iguanas are cold-blooded, their body temperature fluctuates with the ambient temperature. “They slow down or become immobile when temperatures drop into the 40s,” the weather service said on Tuesday evening (local time) on Twitter.
The service reassured animal lovers: “They may fall from trees, but they are not dead.” Twitter users joked in the same way as the cartoon title “Cloudy with a prospect of meatballs”: “Cold with a prospect of falling iguanas”.
Green iguanas, which can sometimes be more than two meters long, originally come from southern America. In Florida, they are considered an introduced species that has no natural predators there. In some parks and gardens, the lizards are already viewed as a nuisance, according to the US media.
No friend of the cold: In Florida it is currently raining hypothermic iguanas that cannot hold on to their trees.
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