Many people wonder about the habitats and regulations that certain things need to survive, but Minnesota is definitely not a place to find items that need warmth to live. Plants and animals are some of the main things in the world that need a specific habitat to live in. That is why it is so strange that the non-native species were showing up in Minnesota.
Palm trees are one of the many unusual things that have been spotted in Cannon Falls. Two of these trees were seen in the woods around the area of Cannon Falls Elementary School. These were reported on March 10, 2026, by someone walking their dog in the school forest. The two trees were seen about 40 yards away from the trails, and by a ravine. “The trees were about 7ft tall each,” says Skylar Senn, who saw them four days after they were reported. Nobody quite knows how they got there or if more will grow, but people have speculated that they were not naturally grown in Cannon Falls but that they were somehow transferred here.
Another rare finding was six tiny Gulf Coast Pygmy Sunfish that were found in Lake Bylesby in Cannon Falls. These fish are only found in the South of the United States. INaturalist. These were seen by a beach maintenance worker picking up garbage. The fish were swimming around the shore and swam away within about seconds of being seen. No more of these rare fish were seen in Lake Byllesby.
On February 27, 2026, a meteorologist found that there was the first hurricane ever tracked in Minnesota. While the hurricane never reached land, it was plowing through Lake Bylesby for about four hours before it died out. Some lake life was disrupted, but nothing else was damaged on shore. All of the meteorologists who took part in tracking the storm have been watching and recording ever since the odd occurrence, but nothing else has resembled a hurricane. Jack Mongomery commented, “I’ve never even thought of a hurricane as a possibility in a place as northern as Minnesota.”
These strange occurrences were very unexpected and weird. Nobody knows how these strange things happened or if there will be any more palm trees, fish, or hurricanes. Maybe more of that sort of thing will start happening in Minnesota or other Northern states. But there is no way to be totally sure.
