They may not look very pretty but a stricken horseshoe crab melted the heart of a passer-by recently who took it upon himself to give the alien-like creature a second chance at life.

Enrico Pescantini was strolling down the beach on Holbox Island in Mexico when he spotted the struggling arthropod.

Somehow, the endangered creature had flipped onto its back and had no obvious way of righting itself.

Pescantini turned it the right way up and the crab crawled back into the ocean to see out its days.

Although they resemble crustaceans, horseshoe crabs actually belong to a separate group of arthropods, Chelicerata, and are closely related to arachnids.

They originated 450 million years ago and are sometimes described as "living fossils."

'Horseshoe crabs are endangered creatures, and there are plenty of them in the north part of Holbox Island, Mexico. They are absolutely not dangerous to humans, despite their tough look. I found this crab flipped on the beach, just waiting to die, and helped him to reach back the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.'