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Night of the Frozen Iguana, Part III

Please don’t pick up that iguana. It may be rabid. Or have cooties. Ehhww.

The Washington Post‘s Herman Wong (that’s right) took a refreshingly snarky view of the whole thing.

The situation was much worse for iguanas in 2010, when temperatures in South Florida fell to the low 30s, the Sun Sentinel reported.

“Neighborhoods resounded with the thud of iguanas dropping from trees onto patios and pool decks,” Sun Sentinel reporter David Fleshler wrote.

Many iguanas died that year, as did other animals.

“Many pythons were reported dead, floating in the Everglades,” the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said in a statement to the Palm Beach Post.

The deaths resulted from both the low temperatures and the length of time of the frigid weather.

The iguana population has since recovered, to the consternation of residents.

The WaPo story closes off by insinuating there’s no real story here, it’s just a lot of social-media buzz, according to one Kristen Sommers of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission:

“Bats sometimes will fall out of the roost of trees when we have a pretty cold snap,” Sommers said.

Sommers said that while she’s heard of falling iguanas on social media, the agency hasn’t gotten any reports.

“There have not been an influx of calls to FWC about people worried about iguanas falling out of trees,” she said. “It’s not like something you see every year.”

Read the whole darn thing here.

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