Part of the reason iguanas have survived so well in Florida is thanks to the state's typically sunny, humid weather—but when cold strikes, iguanas fall. This cold snap may be a rude awakening. They do not pose a threat to humans and can be kept as pets in Florida. Female iguanas can lay nearly 80 eggs a year, and South Florida's warm climate is perfect for the prehistoric-looking animals. But what is the green iguana, how did it make its way to the Keys and should we like them? It’s so cold in Florida that iguanas are falling from their perches in suburban trees. But that’s well behind power failures caused by vegetation, Beltran points out. In South Florida, iguanas are the second leading cause of power outages, behind squirrels. Because of the cold temperatures sweeping the nation, iguanas are dropping out of trees like overripe mangoes, littering the ground in an apparent state of rigor mortis. We’ll take a look at those questions and more below. "Since then, they've kind of slowly grown," he added. COOPER CITY, FLA. (WSVN) - South Florida’s green iguana population continues to increase, and now biologists and residents are raising concerns about … "Green iguanas showed up in South Florida, in Miami-Dade County around 1960," said Matthew Metcalf, a Florida Gulf Coast University biologist. Iguanas are not native to Florida and considered an invasive species, according to the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conversation Commission. Pardon the American iguanas residing in sunny Florida for not feeling very patriotic on this Fourth of July. Extreme temperatures across the east coast are causing cold-blooded reptiles to ‘shut down’ in Florida, while elsewhere sharks and penguins are feeling the chill Green iguanas are considered to be invasive based on the damage they have caused to seawalls, sidewalks and landscape plants. South Florida has seen iguanas proliferate in the past few years with abnormally warm temperatures. MIAMI — Florida might not have falling snow, but it does have falling iguanas. “Which is why you get this phenomenon in South Florida that it’s raining iguanas.” (Including on windshields.) An iguana that froze lies near a pool after falling from a tree in Boca Raton, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 4, 2018. This has created quite a stir in the local community, and has even made the news. The larger the iguana, the greater its chance of survival, Mr. Magill added. Green iguanas were first reported in Florida in the 1960s in Hialeah, Coral Gables and Key Biscayne along Miami-Dade County’s southeastern coast. A stunned iguana lies in the grass at Cherry Creek Park in Oakland Park, Fla., on Wednesday. The situation was much worse for iguanas in 2010, when temperatures in South Florida fell to the low 30s, the Sun Sentinel reported. Green iguana populations now stretch along the Atlantic Coast in Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach Counties and along the Gulf Coast in Collier and Lee Counties. The low temperatures stun the invasive reptiles, but the iguanas won't necessarily die. Florida Distribution. A hot topic, the iguanas of the Florida Keys have made their home in the islands and have no intentions of leaving.