Comatose Iguanas Are Tumbling From The Skies And It’s Freaking People Out

How many times have you heard someone say, “it’s raining cats and dogs out there?”

Of course, you know there aren’t actually Poodles and Persians falling out of the clouds.

It’s not impossible, however, for flightless animals to fall from the sky.

Tornadic waterspouts sometimes pick up creatures such as fish or frogs and carry them for up to several miles before dropping them to the earth.

And in some places in Florida, some unusual things are apparently falling from the sky, but nary a dog nor cat, fish nor frog in sight…

If you’re planning to spend any time in Florida in the days ahead, you might want to stay out from under trees. Or else be prepared to be hit by falling…iguanas!

That’s right. Iguanas, apparently dead ones, are falling out of trees on the heads of unsuspecting Floridians.

Popular humor writer Frank Cerabino sent a baffled Tweet out showing a picture of a seemingly dead iguana beside his swimming pool.

The Internet then buzzed with photos from people all across Florida sharing their tales of being assaulted by comatose iguanas.

An ABC news reporter was photographed kneeling beside a spectacular specimen.

If you weren’t already aware, some iguanas can grow up to 6 feet in length!

Luckily, the “dropping dragons” aren’t dead, they’re only sleeping. No, really. They are simply stunned into a torpor from low temperatures.

As the mercury dipped into the 30s, more and more Floridians have been finding the lizards laying belly up.

Almost everywhere. Parking lots, swimming pools, sandboxes, playgrounds, even in the middle of the road.

Of course, iguanas are heat-loving creatures; they soak up the sunshine during the day and then climb up into trees to spend their nights away from predators.

Unfortunately, the cold snap that’s taken Floridians by surprise is taking its toll on the iguana population.

The unexpected and extreme cold has been flipping an instinctual switch that tells their bodies to get ready for a long winter.

And, they’re doing that really quickly. Almost instantly in fact.

“When the temperature goes down, they literally shut down, and they can no longer hold on to the trees,” Ron Magill, communications director for Zoo Miami, told the New York Times.

“Which is why you get this phenomenon in South Florida that it’s raining iguanas.”

It looks as if an iguana foot could hold onto anything but when they lose control, their feet lose their grip, and down will come cradle, iguana and all.

Bursting another myth that “the larger they are the harder they fall,” Magill says that larger iguanas actually tend to be injured less from the fall.

But, no matter their size, most of them have a problem coming to after coming down.

“Even if they look dead as a doornail — they’re gray and stiff — as soon as it starts to heat up and they get hit by the sun rays, it’s this rejuvenation,” he said.

He also shared an evolutionary fact that makes scientists marvel. “The ones that survive that cold streak are basically passing on that gene.”

That means that “survival of the fittest” is still a real thing.

And, the iguanas you see in Florida once this cold spell passes will likely not be bothered as much when temps drop into the frigid zone next time.

When that happens, they may begin a slow crawl towards northern areas. Can you imagine finding an iguana on your front porch if you lived in, say, Virginia?

Meanwhile, the falling iguanas have created quite a furor among Floridians who are unaccustomed to being assaulted by reptiles on their way to their car to go buy Oreos.

“They’ll fall out of trees. They’ll end up in areas where your cars are, parking lots, areas where they’re cold-stunned,” reported Emily Maple, reptile keeper at the Palm Beach County Zoo, told WPEC.

Professional reptile keepers are telling everyone to carefully place the frozen iguanas in a sunny spot out of danger to give them a chance of coming back to life.

So, when temps drop again, watch where you walk and keep your eyes to the skies!

Source: The Animal Rescue Site