Lose your footing! Extreme cold could cause iguanas to fall from trees in Florida and sea turtles to freeze to death and wash up in Texas and New England

People aren’t the only ones feeling the effects of the freezing cold blanketing much of America.

Cold-blooded animals such as iguanas can be immobilized by the cold as they sleep in trees and fall to the ground in South Florida. Sea turtles can freeze and wash ashore from Texas to New England.

The massive storm system, which will bring blizzards and record storms, has put 90 million people under winter storm warnings or advisories.

Experts point out that the animals are usually not dead when they fall from trees. Their joints stiffen in the cold, which can cause them to lose their footing on branches and fall from trees.

Like all cold-blooded animals, iguanas cannot generate their own body heat: they must draw heat from their surroundings to stay warm.

Falling temperatures are expected to keep wildlife officials busy – either rescuing reptiles or simply monitoring the effects of this extreme cold.

These keepers say if you come across a frozen iguana, it’s best to leave it alone, as it can sometimes bite people while it’s still thawing.

Temperatures drop into the 30s in Florida this Christmas weekend. Many of the lizards in the southern part of the state come from more tropical climates, so temperatures below 45 degrees Fahrenheit are too cold to move.

The National Weather Service has warned Florida residents in the past about the possibility of iguanas falling from trees.

“Much of the state will remain mostly clear and freezing cold tonight with the possibility of scattered to scattered iguanas falling from trees,” the NWS said in January.

“You change the environment, and the organisms that feel it first and most strongly are the ectotherms [coldblooded animals] because their entire fitness is thermally dependent,” Martha Muñoz, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University, told the Washington Post.

Experts point out that the animals are usually not dead when they fall from trees. Their joints stiffen in the cold, which can cause them to lose their footing on branches and fall from trees

Sea turtles (like the one above) have not adapted well to the colder temperatures. In recent years, they have been rampant in Texas and other states

Frostbite is a condition experienced by sea turtles in extremely cold temperatures that paralyzes them and prevents them from eating or staying afloat. Above: This sea turtle was recovered from Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts

But researchers say the iguanas are adapting to colder temperatures, so there is less falling of trees than in the past.

“Every year that we get a cold streak, I see less and less of these iguanas falling out of trees and catching colds… and it’s not because there are less and less iguanas,” said Ron Magill of Zoo Miami told the Post.

“It’s just an indication that these animals are actually adapting.” Less and less succumb to such temperature differences.”

However, sea turtles could not adapt well to the colder temperatures. In recent years, they have been rampant in Texas and other states.

Volunteers working with a local rescue group called Sea Turtle, Inc. work, took in more than 4,000 sea turtles for rehabilitation on South Padre Island, Texas in February 2021.

Keepers planned to gradually increase their body heat while the turtles lay on tarps and in kiddie pools at the city’s convention center.

Wendy Knight, the chief executive of the rescue group, said the situation was “unprecedented” and she feared hundreds of them had already succumbed to “cold anesthesia”.

“A cold stupor like this can have the potential to undo decades of hard work, and we go through it without power and a unique, catastrophic challenge to our efforts,” she told the Post.

Cold torpor is a condition sea turtles experience in extremely cold temperatures that paralyzes them and prevents them from eating or staying afloat, according to Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

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