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There are plenty of benefits to playing Pokémon Go: the app encourages players to get outside and be active, make friends and explore their community. But some advantages of the new app have been unexpected. Like when players Sara Perez and Matthew Teague stumbled across a cage housing 20 hamsters and seven newborn mice while searching for Pokémon in a park in Houston, Texas.

The pair stumbled across the animals in the cage with only birdseed—no water or appropriate food. The small animals were suffering from heat exhaustion, so Sara and Matthew knew they had to act fast and rushed the animals back to Sara's home.

"We were just surprised and confused, and we looked around the park and called out to see if anyone was there, but there was no one," Sara told Click2 Houston. She and Matthew provided the animals with fresh food, water and bedding.

Thanks to the fast-acting friends, all of the animals survived. Not only did Pokémon Go lead Sara and Matthew to the animals abandoned in the empty park, but the game also helped them find homes for the hamsters and mice. Sara took to the Pokémon Go: Houston Community Facebook page to find assistance from others nearby.

"They shared my posts and offered to take some [animals] home, and just have been saddened by the cruelty that someone would do this to the animals," Sara said. "I even had someone from the community come and take four of them home."

Sara took the animals she couldn't find homes for to the Houston SPCA.

"I'm just glad I was able to save them," she said. 

What's the strangest thing you've stumbled across while playing Pokémon Go?  

Photo credit: Sara Perez.

by Kristin Helf | 7/29/2016