This article first appeared on RTL.de.

Drivers have sharpened all their senses twice and three times over at the moment. With the beginning of the autumn season you have to reckon with a lot of deer crossing again. So did a man in Stadthagen near Hanover. But no wild boar or deer ran in front of his car. A huge crab crawled on the asphalt.

Early Sunday morning, a man reports to the police in Stadthagen, Lower Saxony (about 50 kilometers from Hanover). He ran over a "huge crab" that is now missing a leg, he tells the officials. And at first they thought: This is probably a bad joke. They have never had such a message before. Nevertheless, the police officers drive to the scene of the accident on Nordsehler Strasse and discover that the man was right.

However, when the police arrive, the crab is already dead.

It must be a Chinese mitten crab. This invasive species travels the world as a stowaway from China in the ballast water of container ships – including to us in Germany.