ALBUQUERQUE, NM (KRQE/CNN) - There are no nearby ponds, streams or even drainage ditches near a neighborhood in Albuquerque, NM, where hundreds of crawfish mysteriously turned up.
Residents and city officials are equaled stumped how the little critters made their way in such numbers to an area seemingly unsuitable for their natural habitat.
"As I got out of my truck, there was a crawdad walking down the middle of the street," Albert Valdez said. "As I walked around, I saw crawdads walking all over the street."
Valdez grabbed a bucket and went out with his great-granddaughters, who happened to be stopping by, to collect them and take them to safety.
"Mom said why don't you call him over and I said grandpa!' and he said, 'come here,'" Jade Torres, Valdez's great-granddaughter said. "I went to him and then I looked in the bucket and it was full of crawdads."
The crawfish were only between a couple of streets and neighbors found them in their back yard.
"My grandpa said 150, and I think that's about right. We got a lot of them," Torres said. "I think they're really cute with their big, black eyes."
Not all of them crawfish made it to safety as they fell victim to cars and ants, but the ones Valdez collected were deposited in a drainage ditch they can call their new home.
Calls to the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority, the City of Albuquerque, the New Mexico Department of Game & Fish and the Water Utility Authority yielded no answers to the mystery.
Crawfish are known to burrow underground but they only do that near muddy or watery areas, and there's no water around Valdez's neighborhood.
Nevertheless, he has his own theory.
"Maybe," Valdez said, "they might have fallen out of the sky."
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