A morning trip to grab some coffee is rarely the talking point of one's day—unless you were the woman confronted with a pair of iguanas fighting in a Starbucks parking lot.
Shannon Moskoff headed to a Starbucks in Palm Beach, Florida, at around 10 a.m. when she spotted an obstruction in the road. She assumed it was a huge tree branch, but quickly realized it was two iguanas, the Palm Beach Post reported.
A video she shot of the moment and posted on Facebook shows the orange and green-skinned reptiles going head to head in the parking lot, appearing to fight.
"Oh my God, they're eating each other," a woman is heard saying in the video.
"What the—I've never seen this in my life. Are they stuck?" a voice is heard saying in the footage.
"Omg!!! This is CRAY CRAY," Moskoff captioned her Facebook video which was viewed over 3,300 times. Beneath the footage, her Facebook friends debated whether the iguanas were fighting or preparing to mate.
Jaime Margolin-Croft, a high school friend of Moskoff, was behind her in the parking lot and also captured the tussle on camera.
"Only in Boca!" Margolin-Croft told the Palm Beach Post.
The fighting comes amid reports of a spike in Florida's iguana population. However, the creatures are not native to the state but rather Central America, the tropical regions of South American and some Caribbean islands. Green iguanas were first spotted in Florida in the 1960s along Miami's southeastern coast. Now, the reptiles have been identified as far north as Alachua. These are likely to have escaped or been released from captivity, however, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Generally, iguanas in the state favor burrows, culverts drainage pipes, canal banks and vacant lots as their adopted habitats. "South Florida's extensive man-made canals serve as ideal dispersal corridors to further allow iguanas to colonize new areas," the Commission explained on its website.
And while the site of a pair of battling iguanas might look aggressive, they're no immediate threat to humans. But they are considered a nuisance by some property owners due to the damage they can inflict on gardens. Iguanas can be deterred from properties—presumably including Starbucks parking lots—by removing plants that attract them, filling holes to remove spots where they can burrow, and hanging wind chimes which make noises. Spraying them with water is also a humane technique to send them on their way.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Kashmira Gander is Deputy Science Editor at Newsweek. Her interests include health, gender, LGBTQIA+ issues, human rights, subcultures, music, and lifestyle. Her ... Read more
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