Poor guy. Sorry, losing a pet sucks. Even losing a hermie, they are pets tooYeah. He had completely abandoned his shell (it was not stuck anywhere, and was easily accessible), and curled up next to his water dish. When I found him, he did not have any smell to him (yes, I sniffed him). When I still was unsure, I gently probed his antenna and eye stalks. Nothing. I brought him outside to bury him, and he was only then starting to have the stinky ocean smell. This is exactly how I found him, but obviously he was in his tank.
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No signs of having been dragged out of his shell by his new family; the sand around him and his shell only had his footprints. It is like he died either trying to get a drink, or after he had already drank. The real pain of it was that if I had gone straight to the tank after waking up rather than going downstairs to use the bathroom, I probably would have been holding him when he died.