Out cold: unseasonal temperatures litter south Florida with stunned iguanas

The weather forecast warned it would be raining reptiles and Floridians recorded encounters with lizards feeling the chill

Lauren Aratani in New York

Wed 22 Jan 2020 23.19 GMTLast modified on Thu 23 Jan 2020 02.22 GMT

It truly was the night (and day) of the iguana.

After the National Weather Service (NWS) sent an unusual alert to south Florida residents on Tuesday night warning them of possible “falling iguanas” in light of unseasonably low temperatures, residents were indeed treated to a show of rigid reptiles out of the sky (or, actually, the trees).

The not-so-small creatures were seen motionless in the middle of sidewalks and backyards. While they looked dead, they were actually just too cold to move. Iguanas start becoming sluggish when temperatures drop below 50F (10C) and are susceptible to freezing once temperatures drop to around 40F (4.5C). When frozen, they easily fall out of the trees they call home, appearing lifeless even though they aren’t dead.

Floridians shared videos of the phenomenon, giving Twitter an up-close look at the green-scaled reptiles that are probably dreaming of warmer climates, or at least spring.

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Cold weather most likely killed famous croc

April 2, 2015

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck

A crocodile that gained notoriety after being discovered on the Greek island of Crete last year has died, apparently from a recent cold spell, various media outlets are reporting.

Credit: Thinkstock

According to Discovery News, regional water management representative Vangelis Mamangakis confirmed that the Nile croc had been found dead on Sunday, apparently as a result of exposure to the cold. It was to be taken to the natural history museum at Heraklion for further testing.

The six-foot (two-meter) long crocodile, which has been dubbed Sifis (Cretan for Joseph), first gained notoriety after it was first discovered at an artificial lake last summer. Crowds flocked to see the creature, whose fame only grew as it managed to avoid multiple attempts to capture it.

Sifis-less

Sifis, which experts believe had been abandoned by its former owner, died eight months after it was first spotted on the island. It was discovered belly-up on the banks of a lake, and experts told The Guardian that it had apparently been dead for over a week when it was discovered.

“He… must have been dead for at least 10 days,” Petros Liberakis, a local herpetologist who was in charge of attempts to capture the crocodile, told the UK-based newspaper. “This year’s heavy winter and the fact that we had so little sunshine were almost certainly the cause.”

Sifis was named by the legions of fans he earned over the past eight months, some of whom had actually set up a Facebook page to the creature. Tourists and TV crews reportedly travelled to the island to get a first-hand look at the crocodile, which had first been spotted bathing in the sun at the lake, and the beast had captured at least 10 different attempts to capture it.

“In the end it was the cold that got him,” Mamagakis told The Guardian. “It’s sad, very sad. We never wanted this to happen, we wanted to move him out of the reservoir to a more suitable place but he just kept eluding us… He was very happy in the lake, there was a lot for him to eat there.”

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Sea Turtles continue to strand in record numbers in Cape Cod – via Herp Digest

Cape Cod Times -December 29, 2012- WELLFLEET — Massachusetts Audubon Society staff and volunteers continued to find sea turtles washing up on Cape Cod beaches during the holidays.

Nearly a dozen of these tropical turtles came ashore, their metabolism virtually shut down as a result of exposure to cold water, until they could do little but float and get pushed around by onshore winds.

Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary staff members said this year's total of 350 threatened or endangered sea turtles that have been recovered on the Cape shattered the past record of 278 set in 1999 and is the highest since they started keeping track 30 years ago.

In a statement Friday, sanctuary director Robert Prescott said the dramatic increase was likely because there were a lot more turtles in Cape Cod Bay this year.

Hurricane Sandy also helped drive many to shore in late October.

Other records were broken this year as well, including 96 loggerhead turtles retrieved from beaches, while turtle rescuers might see only a dozen in any given year.

Also, a record 228 endangered Kemp's ridley turtles were recovered, and 23 rescued green turtles nearly double the previous record.

The normal survival rate for these rescued sea turtles is 45 percent, but 65 percent survived this year, most sent to the New England Aquarium's turtle rehabilitation center in Quincy, with some going to the National Marine Life Center in Buzzards Bay.

The New England Aquarium had to ship 75 relatively healthy or stable turtles to other facilities to make room for new arrivals.

In the statement, Prescott said sea turtles may continue to wash up on Cape beaches late into January because water temperatures have been unseasonably warm.

Big butterfly count reveals that bad weather was bad for most butterflies

Washout summer hampers butterflies

September 2012. This wettest summer for a century saw the numbers of many common butterflies fall, the world's biggest butterfly count has revealed. More than 25,000 people across the UK took part in the Big Butterfly Count 2012, counting over 223,000 butterflies and day-flying moths.

75% species declined in the last year
But the Butterfly Conservation survey revealed the numbers of 15 of the 21 species studied fell compared with last year's figures and 11 common butterflies declined by more than one third. Butterfly Conservation is concerned that the wettest summer for 100 years, combined with a poor spring has triggered population crashes and could put some already threatened species at risk.

Cold and wet weather is bad news
Cold and wet weather is a dangerous double whammy for butterflies - it increases the mortality of caterpillars and also limits the ability of adult butterflies to find mates and lay eggs, which leads to reduced numbers in current and future generations.

Read on:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/butterfly-count012.html