Wildlife woes: Iguanas, bats and sharks succumb to weather extremes

Iguana. INQUIRER.net stock photo

The only thing you should expect to fall from the sky is rain, or Mr. Bean. But in some parts of the world, some animals have been dropping from the sky as of late, or being washed up on shores.

No, the world is not yet ending, nor is this a sign that the archaic idiom of raining cats and dogs is well on its way out of 2018. Iguanas in the United States, though, are found to be falling off trees because the weather is far too cold, as reported by Deutsche Welle (DW). Florida, which is tropical all year round, had seen recent wanes in its temperatures. Fortunately, the iguanas are not dead and will come back more resistant to the cold.

Recently in Australia, the demise of bats called flying fox has been attributed to extreme heat waves happening in the country, said an AFP report. The bats, which weigh about a kilogram and has a wingspan of one meter, mainly eat fruit and whose presence is a common occurrence in southeast Australia. At least 204 animals had been killed by the extreme heat thus far, according to DW.

The report also pointed out the case of thresher sharks washing up on the beach shores of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Frozen and lifeless, the thresher sharks are suspected by scientists to have died after migrating out of the south too quickly, or simply of hypothermia. Cody Cepeda/JB

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