Frozen iguanas are falling out of trees in South Florida

If this cold snap has taught us anything, it's that iguanas are zombies and that we humans are merely their unsuspecting victims.

Residents of South Florida reported on Thursday that frozen iguanas were falling from trees all over the usually-temperate Florida landscape.

Thanks to the bomb cyclone that hit the East Coast, temperatures in South Florida sunk below 40 degrees on Thursday. For humans, that means time to bundle up in your winter clothes but for iguanas that meant their warm weather-loving, cold-blooded bodies went into hibernation mode.

Apparently, an iguana's response to cold weather is to just totally shut down: to become frozen, lifeless, even sapped of their usual neon-green color.

Iguanas hang out in trees during the night. So when Florida freezes over, the momentarily moribund reptiles plop from the trees and become motionless "iguancicles," as we should probably all agree to call them.

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But lo! Do not think that the iguanas' totally dead appearance means the crafty critters are actually gone from this world. Like nature's solar panels, once the iguanas absorb enough rays of sun, they spring back into action. Which enables freaking terrifying scenes like this one, described by the Washington Post:

Ron Magill of the Miami Zoo told WPLG TV in 2010 about a man who collected sleeping iguanas and threw them into the back of his station wagon. Then they awoke.

“All of a sudden these things are coming alive, crawling on his back and almost caused a wreck.”

Magill told the New York Times that Floridians should avoid touching the iguanas, no matter how dead they look. Because when they come back to life, they have been known to bite.

“Even if they look dead as a doornail — they’re gray and stiff — as soon as it starts to heat up and they get hit by the sun rays, it’s this rejuvenation,” he said. “The ones that survive that cold streak are basically passing on that gene.”

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Cool cool cool cool cool. The zombie iguanas are coming for us all.