Jan. 18 (UPI) -- A hermit crab that escaped from its owners' Houston home was found three months later when a neighbor spotted the crustacean wandering next to a sidewalk.
Brothers Jason and Andrew Yu said they built an outdoor enclosure for their three hermit crabs outside of their Houston home, and two of the animals, Kizer and Pincher, escaped from the habitat on consecutive days in October.
"We went looking for them," mother Linda Yu told KHOU-TV. "We checked the grass. We checked the bushes."
Three months passed before neighbor Sarah Beckmann spotted something unusual while out on a run down the street from the Yu family's home.
"I noticed a little hermit crab on the side of the sidewalk in our neighborhood," she said. "Our own kids have some hermit crabs, so I guess it caught my eye as something that just didn't belong there."
Beckmann told the crab home and put it in the enclosure with her kids' pets. She posted on Facebook asking if anyone in the area was missing an "escape artist pet," and she soon received a reply from Yu.
Kizer is now back home, but the Yu family said they have many questions about their pet's time on the loose.
"How did a 1-inch animal live on its own for three months out there?" Linda Yu asked.
Jason and Andrew said Kizer's return has renewed their hopes that Pincher might be the next crab to come home.
A Canadian woman was recently reunited with her own escaped pet after a considerably longer amount of time -- 12 years.
Kitchener resident Christine De Castro received a call from Vaughan Animal Services on New Year's Day revealing her cat, Loli, had been picked up as a stray and scanned for a microchip.
De Castro said the feline was 2 years old when she went missing from her former home in Richmond Hill, Ontario, in summer 2010.
