天降蜥蜴

○張軍輝

In the wake of a so called bomb cyclone sweeping the U.S.East Coast，something strange happened:frozen iguana bodies falling out of trees and littering the ground around the suburbs.

Before explaining what`s going on,I’d like to learn a phrase with you.That’s“bomb cyclone”.

To make a huge storm sound more frightening,weatherexpertsgive itan explosive name——bomb cyclone,but nothing will explode at all.

Now let’s talk about the rain of green reptiles.They lie on lawns belly-up quietly,seemingly dead,but most of them likely aren't dead—they're just really,really cold.

Iguanas,like other reptiles,are ectotherms(also known as being"cold-blooded"),meaning the temperature outside strongly influences their body temperatures.When the outside temperature drops,preservation of an ectotherm's body temperature becomes the No.1 priority.Creatures like iguanas and turtles thus conserve energy by slowing their metabolisms and almost entirely stopping moving.

So,don’t worry about the frozen iguanas.Though they don’t move at all,they're still able to breathe.They're still able to do bodily functions,just very slow.As temperatures warm,the iguanas will thaw and eventually start moving again.Usually after a day or two,they'll“come back to life”and we will see them on trees again.

隨著“炸彈氣旋”橫掃美國東海岸，發生了一件怪事：凍僵了的鼠鱗蜥像下雨一樣從樹上紛紛墜落，郊區的地面上隨處可見。

在我們了解究竟發生了什么之前，還是一起學習一個詞匯“炸彈氣旋”。

所謂的“炸彈氣旋”并不會發生爆炸，只不過是氣象專家為了讓大風暴聽起來更有震撼力而起了一個嚇人的名字。

現在我們來聊聊“綠蜥蜴雨”。這些蜥蜴肚皮朝上，靜靜地躺在地面上，一動不動，看起來跟死了一樣。但它們大多數并沒有死，只是受不了寒冷的天氣。鼠鱗蜥，還有其他一些爬行動物，屬于冷血動物，它們的體溫受外部溫度的影響特別大。當氣溫降低時，保持自身溫度成了冷血動物的首要任務。比如鼠鱗蜥和海龜通過降低自身的新陳代謝，甚至停止所有運動來維持自身能量。

所以，不要為這些凍僵的蜥蜴擔心。盡管它們一動不動，但是它們仍然能夠呼吸，身體功能依然正常運轉，不過是非常慢而已。隨著氣溫上升，這些蜥蜴就會“解凍”并重新開始活動。通常一兩天，它們就會“死而復生”，很快我們就又會在樹上看到它們的身影。

Notes:

iguana鼠鱗蜥

bomb cyclone炸彈氣旋

explode爆炸

reptile爬行動物

ectotherm冷血動物

metabolism新陳代謝

function功能

thaw解凍；融化。