The “Snowstorm of the Century” spares no one in the United States. The cold snap that has ravaged the country since December 23 is also hurting local wildlife. In the south of the country, temperatures have dropped to around 0°C.
Stung by this cold, iguanas in Florida fall from the trees and find themselves frozen to the ground. These large lizards cannot move and appear dead. They are actually only paralyzed by these low temperatures. Your body no longer has enough energy to move. Most of them will be able to move again as temperatures rise.
Houston bats hit by cold
Iguanas aren’t the only animals suffering from the harsh climate. In Texas, in Houston, bats freeze and end up on the street. Some of them are collected by volunteers trying to warm them up. A first cold snap in 2021 destabilized the bat colony, while Hurricane Harvey decimated the population in 2017.
On the human side, the current storm has caused the deaths of at least 49 people, including 27 in a single county in upstate New York. More than 300,000 American and Canadian homes were without power.