While the Western Hemisphere\u2019s largest lizard is capable of violence, with sharp teeth and powerful, whip-like tails, these slow-moving animals mostly keep to themselves. That is, except for when a cold snap moves through the region, slamming the brakes on the iguanas\u2019 metabolism and ultimately turning them into scaly projectiles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe phenomenon of cold stunning is not unique to green iguanas,\u201d says\u00a0Natalie Claunch<\/a>, a wildlife biologist with the\u00a0USDA Wildlife Services National Wildlife Research Center<\/a>. \u201cBut the phenomenon of observing them falling from trees during these events is due to them being established in a climate outside of their native range and without many of their natural predators.\u201d<\/p>\n What happens to a cold-stunned iguana?<\/p>\n Like all reptiles, green iguanas are ectotherms. Ectotherms\u2019 body temperatures are mostly determined by the external environment, rather than creating their own heat like mammals.<\/p>\n In turn, an iguana\u2019s body temperature influences its internal processes, such as its metabolism.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring a cold spell, these processes will slow down and can reach a torpor-like state, where their heart rate and breathing rates are\u00a0slowed down\u00a0<\/a>[A1]<\/a>\u00a0[JB2]<\/a>\u00a0and overall signaling in the body is slowed as a result,\u201d says Claunch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Western Hemisphere\u2019s largest lizard is capable of violence, with sharp teeth and powerful, whip-like tails, these…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[68902,28,58694,30,68906,29,68905,68903,27205,17343,68901,68904,68900],"class_list":{"0":"post-142069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-are-iguanas-dangerous","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-cold-snap","11":"tag-florida-headlines","12":"tag-florida-iguana-cull","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-frozen-iguanas","15":"tag-green-iguana","16":"tag-iguana","17":"tag-iguanas","18":"tag-iguanas-florida","19":"tag-iguanidae","20":"tag-raining-iguanas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}