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Let frozen iguanas lie: Floridians attacked by newly-thawed reptiles
The recent cold snap in Florida has led to multiple reports of frozen iguanas falling from their perches. However bad you might feel for the frigid critters, it’s definitely not a good idea to pick them up.
Something of an iguanapocalypse is happening in South Florida as the state experiences unseasonably cold temperatures. Iguanas can be ‘cold stunned’ if temperatures drop below 45 degrees Fahrenheit (seven degrees Celsius), becoming immobilized and entering something of a cold-coma. This week it dropped as low as 38 degrees in Palm Beach.
The frozen iguana petrified next to my South Florida swimming pool yesterday, reanimated himself in the afternoon sun. Here he is walking it off ... After another cold night, though, he's probably a green popsicle again this morning. pic.twitter.com/nOept7ksJT
— Frank Cerabino (@FranklyFlorida) January 5, 2018
Some good samaritans have taken it upon themselves to dispose of iguana corpses that have fallen from surrounding trees overnight, only to learn that they’re not actually dead and, it appears, are in fact quite feisty when they awake from their slumber.
READ MORE: ‘Freezing to death a horrible way to die’: Ohio sheriff warns pet owners
One man in Key Biscayne, a town south of Miami Beach, learned this lesson the hard way when he collected a bunch of gray, stone-cold, iguanas that had fallen from a stretch of trees, loading them into his vehicle.
Soon after, the seemingly ‘dead’ iguanas came to life in the now warmed up vehicle and attacked the driver, according to wildlife expert Ron Magill, who recounted the incident on NPR.
There’s been an #iguana living in my parents yard in Miami for last 2 years. We found him like this today- We are trying to revive him
