MIAMI — Are the iguanas forming a street gang in the next phase of their South Florida takeover plan?
If they are, we might know who the leader is.
A bandanna-wearing iguana reportedly jumped over a home’s fence and “attacked” someone in Miami recently. Then a woman wearing medical scrubs came looking for it.
What?
Yes, this strange “Oh, Miami” moment apparently happened and Miami-raised journalist Arielle Castillo, who now works as the U.S. content producer for Manchester City Football Club, shared the deets on Twitter.
“I just got a call from one of my two social pod friends in Miami that they were attacked by a giant iguana … wearing a bandanna … that ran away when it was called by a woman next door in medical scrubs,” Castillo wrote Thursday afternoon.
Castillo, who previously worked at Fusion and Miami New Times, said it happened in a neighborhood near the International Links Melreese Country Club close to Miami International Airport.
The iguana came from her friend’s next door neighbor’s back room and leaped over the fences, according to Castillo’s retelling of the friend’s confrontation with the scaly critter.
Iguana run-ins aren’t strange in South Florida, though they normally run away from humans. The weird part is that Castillo’s friend says the animal was wearing a red bandanna like a neckerchief.
The “So Miami” story naturally got people talking in the comments.
“It’s stories like this that nurture that very small part of me that thinks ‘Florida’ is really just a made up fantasy land — a deception that everyone is in on but me… Truman Burbank style,” one commentator wrote.
Another Twitter user wanted to know if the critter was wearing a holiday bandanna or if it was part of an “iguana street gang.”
“How … does an iguana … attack a human?” a guy named Drew asked.
Castillo thinks it was a runaway pet and her friend just happened to be there when the iguana leaped out of the bushes from the yard next door. Unfortunately, Castillo said her “gringuito buddy” doesn’t speak Spanish so no one knows what the woman in the medical scrubs yelled out.
“I’ll never know details … this will just torment me,” Castillo tweeted.
While the strange Florida tale leaves more questions than answers, one commentator named Jonathan is just “glad the iguana was wearing a face covering.”
“But it should have also been following social distancing guidelines,” he wrote.
