A cat missing for more than a year was reunited with its owner after somehow traveling hundreds of miles in Florida.

ADVERTISEMENT

The 5-year-old cat, named Kingston, disappeared in Key West Dec. 7, 2009, and was found in Bradenton, Bay News 9 in St. Petersburg reported.

Kingston's owner, Sharla Sharkey picked him up Saturday,

"It's amazing that I got to see him again," she said. "I'm not sure how he got here. Somebody might have taken him in and then he got out or something, I don't know."

Sharkey credits a microchip implanted in her pet.

"The microchip's important because if they get that collar loose or that tag falls off, the microchip is implanted just beneath the surface of the skin," said Denise Deisler of the Manatee County Humane Society in Bradenton, which found the cat.

"They said they had my cat and I just started bawling my eyes out, thinking it was some kind of joke," Sharkey said.

She got Kingston at 8 weeks old while she was planning a trip to Jamaica and named him after the city there.