Falling Iguanas A Risk As FL Cold Blast Arrives, See Latest Forecast

With temperatures plunging as a cold front moves into Florida Monday night, that can only mean one thing for parts of the state: a chance of falling iguanas as the thermometer nears 32 degrees.

“[The] coldest air of the season will arrive today through Tuesday night! A cold weather advisory is in effect tonight for all of west central and southwest Florida as wind chills will generally be in the 20s to lower 30s,” the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay wrote in a Monday morning post to X.

Freeze warnings are in place for a number of central and northern Florida counties.

Temperatures could get as low as the high 40s in South Florida overnight, NWS in Miami said.

This increases the likelihood of cold-stunned green iguanas and other nonnative reptiles falling from trees.

When temperatures drop to near freezing or below, this means these reptiles “can go into a state of torpor, where they temporarily lose all muscle control. This can sometimes cause green iguanas to fall out of trees or other vegetation,” according to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission website.

The FWC reminds people not to bring iguanas into their homes or vehicles to warm up. The animals “can recover quickly and act defensively, using their sharp teeth and claws and their long tails that whip,” the agency said.

“When it gets this cold like this, it’s funny to those who aren’t from here to see the news people talking about iguanas falling from trees, but … it can and will happen,” said Joe Wasilewski, a conservation biologist with the King Cobra Conservancy and a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Iguana Specialist Group, previously told Patch.

He added, “If it’s under 40 (degrees), it’s gonna happen. If it’s in the 50s, they’re slow. If it’s in the 40s, they’re on the brink of falling. And if it’s in the 30s, they’re down.”

Green iguanas, which are cold-blooded, were introduced to Florida decades ago from Central and South America.

Those are areas “that very rarely dip below 45 or 40 degrees,” Dermot Bowden with the South Florida Herpetological Society, previously told Patch. “It just doesn’t happen, so they’re not that cold tolerant. So, the few times the temperatures get that low here, they get what we call cold stunned.”

Usually, that “magic number” is 45 degrees, he said. Any temperature below that, and the iguanas become inactive, meaning they’re more likely to fall from trees and other high places in which they might be sleeping or hiding.

People often mistakenly think the lizards found lying on the ground during a cold snap are dead, but they aren’t.

If anyone comes across a cold-stunned iguana, “the best thing to do is just leave them the way they are,” Bowden said. “They will recover.”

As temperatures rise, usually when they hit around 50 degrees, the lizards start moving again. It’s only when the extreme cold lasts for several days that the iguanas can’t recover, he said.