Boiled bats in Australia, frozen iguanas in Florida

Not to worry, not to worry. Just some hundreds of bats dropping dead after “boiling” in heat-wave-stricken Australia.

Hundreds of dead bats were scattered on the ground and left dangling from trees after extreme heat decimated a Campbelltown colony on Sunday.

While most Campbelltown residents did all they could to escape the heat, several WIRES volunteers descended on the colony near Campbelltown train station as part of a mass rescue and body collection mission.

At last count, 204 dead bats – mostly babies – had been collected, Campbelltown colony manager Kate Ryan said.

[…]

“They basically boil,” Mrs Ryan said.

“It affects their brain – their brain just fries and they become incoherent.

“It would be like standing in the middle of a sandpit with no shade.”

Dozens of dead flying foxes in Australia

Temperatures recently reached as high as 47°C (117°F) in some parts of Australia, hot enough to melt roads. And in the Great Barrier Reef, rising sea temperatures are turning the area’s sea turtles 99% female, posing a serious danger to the species’ future in the region.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, frozen iguanas are raining from the trees in Florida, though most the latter are fortunate enough to spring back to life once they warm up.

The iguanas have a good chance of thawing out if you move them in the sun. Just be careful @CBS12 pic.twitter.com/Qn2w6NFedD

— Maxine Bentzel (@MaxineBentzel) January 4, 2018

There sure are a lot of strange weather-related headlines these days. I’d wonder whether there were some underlying, human-driven phenomenon that may be causing our climate to change, perhaps because of warming temperatures all over the globe … but oil companies and the US President himself all say that’s just silly, and I’m sure they know best.

(via I fucking love science | Facebook)