Man’s Horrifying Discovery Inside Bag Store Bought Broccoli
A man went to a supermarket for groceries and unknowingly came home with an unexpected guest—a snake! He didn’t realize it until after the reptile made itself comfortable among his food.
Last month, 63-year-old Neville Linton bought a bag of broccoli from an Aldi store in Stourbridge, England, and stored it in his fridge. Three days later, while preparing his meal, he was in for a surprise when he unwrapped the broccoli.
To his shock, he found a snake nestled among the vegetables. The snake, which had likely been exploring a broccoli field in southwestern Europe, was accidentally packed with the produce and shipped to the UK.
Neville, who works in industrial cleaning, couldn’t believe his eyes. “It was pretty frightening. I’m not good with snakes,” he admitted. “It’s lucky I didn’t leave the broccoli out in the kitchen, or it would’ve been loose in the house.”
Realizing the creature was too large to be a caterpillar, Neville called his sister, Ann-Marie Tenkanemin, for help. She quickly identified it as a snake. The pair put it in a tub and returned to the Aldi store on Dudley Road, where Neville made the purchase.
“It was a bit of a shock. I thought she was joking at first, but I backed off when I saw it moving,” Neville said. “The guy in the shop was pretty frightened too.”
The snake was taken to a local zoo for identification. Staff initially believed it to be a young ladder snake, but Dr. Steven J R Allain, aka The Pop-Punk Herpetologist, disagreed. “Having reviewed the photo of the snake in the broccoli, I’m not sure the zoo identified it correctly,” Allain told Bored Panda. “To my expert eyes, this is actually a viperine water snake (Natrix maura), a harmless fish-eating species native to southwestern Europe and northern Africa.”
The journey to the UK and then to Neville’s home took some time, but Allain explained that viperine water snakes can go for months without food. The cold of the fridge would have slowed its metabolism, reducing its energy needs.
“These snakes are only dangerous to fish or frogs,” Allain said. “They don’t bite humans as a defense mechanism—they’d rather play dead. They are non-venomous to humans.”
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