Following a recent rise in the number of exotic pets that have escaped or been abandoned across the country, a giant salamander and a green iguana were spotted Saturday in Kanagawa Prefecture and caught by police.
The 66-cm-long giant salamander was found on a street in Kawasaki by a passerby at around 7 a.m. The animal, designated by the government as a "special national treasure," usually does not live in eastern Japan.
The 45-cm-long green iguana was found on a tree branch outside a house in Yokohama.
Recently, pythons that are believed to be escaped pets have been spotted across the nation.
On Wednesday night, a woman found a 1-meter-long, 8-cm-thick python coiled up in a futon closet in her house in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo.
