General Discussion

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/22/cold-iguanas-florida-falling-sea-turtles/

"....Sometimes, the National Weather Service in Miami issues announcements for “falling iguanas” to emphasize the severe cold and let people know the lizards are not, in fact, dead. But the freeze is temporary most of the time. When temperatures rise, some wake up and resume their normal activities. In the past, people have loaded the frozen iguanas, thinking they were dead, in the back of a car to harvest their meat, only to have the lizards thaw and attack. (So perhaps, don’t do that.)
...
"Some other lizards are also known to fall out of trees as iguanas do, but they don’t get the publicity that a five-foot lizard does,” said Jonathan Losos, an evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis.

But researchers and animal experts say the cold spells don’t seem to incapacitate the iguanas like they used to, suggesting that animals are adapting to the chilly weather. People may still see iguanas dropping during the upcoming cold blast, but not as many as two to three decades ago, said Zoo Miami’s Ron Magill.

“With each year when we get a cold streak, I see less and less of those iguanas falling out of trees and being cold-stunned … and it’s not because there are less and less iguanas,” Magill said. “It’s just indicative that these animals are, in fact, adapting. Less and less of them are succumbing to this type of temperature differential.”...(more)