A guy went to the supermarket to pick up some groceries and ended up bringing home a snake without even knowing it until the snake started exploring his food.
Last month, 63-year-old Neville Linton grabbed a bag of broccoli from an Aldi store in Stourbridge, England. He put it in his fridge and only took it out three days later to cook a meal.
But when he unwrapped the broccoli, however, the man immediately saw the unexpected guest. Continue scrolling to learn how the ordeal went down and don’t miss the talk we had about it with Dr. Steven J R Allain, aka The pop-punk Herpetologist.
A snake that was exploring a broccoli field somewhere in southwestern Europe got packed up and shipped to a British supermarket
Without suspecting, Neville Linton, 63, picked it up together with a bag of vegetables and took the reptile home
Neville, who works in industrial cleaning, couldn’t believe his eyes.
“It was pretty frightening. I’m not good with snakes,” he said. “It’s lucky I didn’t just leave the broccoli out in the kitchen, or it would have been loose in the house.”
That would have been a really big risk for us since we have two people here who need extra care.
When he figured out that the creature was way too big to be a caterpillar, he called his sister Ann-Marie Tenkanemin for help, and she recognized it as a snake.
They put it in a tub and headed back to the Aldi store on Dudley Road where Neville had bought it.
“At first, I thought she was just kidding, but I got scared when I saw it start to move. The guy in the store looked pretty scared too,” he said.
The snake was taken to a nearby zoo, and the experts there found out it was a young ladder snake.
But herpetologist Dr. Steven J R Allain suspects it might be a viperine water snake
The reptile was transported to Dudley Zoo, and its staff believe it to be a young ladder snake. However, Bored Panda got in touch with Dr. Steven J R Allain and he tends to disagree.
Allain mentioned, “After looking at the actual picture of the snake in the broccoli, I have doubts about whether the zoo correctly identified the species. To me, it looks like a viperine water snake (Natrix maura), which is a harmless snake that eats fish and is found in southwestern Europe and northern Africa.”
Allain graduated in zoology from Anglia Ruskin University, earned his Master’s from Imperial College London, and is now a Ph.D. student at the University of Kent. His research mainly focuses on the population ecology of the barred grass snake (Natrix helvetica) and the impact of a disease called ophidiomycosis, but he also studies diseases in amphibians and their populations.
“All things considered, since a lot of the food that the UK grows and imports comes from the Mediterranean, it makes sense that a species from that area could show up in vegetables that were probably grown there. I think the snake was probably moving through the field when it got caught by farming equipment and then found a hiding spot in the broccoli.”
The trip to the UK and then another one to Neville’s home took some time, but Allain said that these snakes are able to go a couple of months without food, and the chilling of the fridge would have helped keep its metabolism low, reducing the body’s energy demands.
“Still, I can’t picture it being very cozy,” he said. “Going from the warm Mediterranean weather to a cooler place just to keep the broccoli fresh must have been tough.”
“Viperine water snakes are only a threat if you’re a fish or a frog. They don’t bite humans to defend themselves; instead, they prefer to play dead, and they are not poisonous to people.”
“I can only imagine how stressful this was for Neville, especially since he’s afraid of snakes,” Allain mentioned. “But if there was more education about snakes and how to handle situations like this, his reaction might have been better. The snake didn’t choose to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time, but hopefully, its new home at Dudley Zoo will help people overcome their fear of snakes.”
Neville is trying to get compensated for having to go through all of this
Neville has been offered compensation but is trying to get more.
A dad with three kids expressed that what he heard didn’t seem fair, especially considering the safety of his disabled son and his vulnerable mother-in-law, who all live together.
“It’s just not acceptable,” he said. “If something had happened in our home, it would have been a big deal for us. Plus, I really don’t like snakes, so that adds to my stress.”
An Aldi representative stated, “Our supplier has never received a complaint like this before and has strong measures to avoid such problems.”
“We are looking into this specific situation and have apologized to Mr. Linton for not meeting our usual high standards.”
After the local news picked up the story, people had all sorts of reactions
