天降蜥蜴

○张军辉

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.

随着“炸弹气旋”横扫美国东海岸，发生了一件怪事：冻僵了的鼠鳞蜥像下雨一样从树上纷纷坠落，郊区的地面上随处可见。

在我们了解究竟发生了什么之前，还是一起学习一个词汇“炸弹气旋”。

所谓的“炸弹气旋”并不会发生爆炸，只不过是气象专家为了让大风暴听起来更有震撼力而起了一个吓人的名字。

现在我们来聊聊“绿蜥蜴雨”。这些蜥蜴肚皮朝上，静静地躺在地面上，一动不动，看起来跟死了一样。但它们大多数并没有死，只是受不了寒冷的天气。鼠鳞蜥，还有其他一些爬行动物，属于冷血动物，它们的体温受外部温度的影响特别大。当气温降低时，保持自身温度成了冷血动物的首要任务。比如鼠鳞蜥和海龟通过降低自身的新陈代谢，甚至停止所有运动来维持自身能量。

所以，不要为这些冻僵的蜥蜴担心。尽管它们一动不动，但是它们仍然能够呼吸，身体功能依然正常运转，不过是非常慢而已。随着气温上升，这些蜥蜴就会“解冻”并重新开始活动。通常一两天，它们就会“死而复生”，很快我们就又会在树上看到它们的身影。

Notes:

iguana鼠鳞蜥

bomb cyclone炸弹气旋

explode爆炸

reptile爬行动物

ectotherm冷血动物

metabolism新陈代谢

function功能

thaw解冻；融化。