A man who went to the store to buy food came back with a snake. He didn’t notice it until the snake started eating his food.
63-year-old Neville Linton bought a bag of broccoli from an Aldi store in Stourbridge, England, last month. He put it in his fridge and didn’t take it out until three days later, when he was making a meal.
But as soon as the man took the broccoli out of the package, he saw the surprise visitor. Read on to find out what happened, and don’t miss our interview with Dr. Steven J. Allain, also known as “The pop-punk Herpetologist.”
A snake was looking around in a broccoli field in southwestern Europe. It was picked up and sent to a British store. A man got the shock of his life when he found a snake in a bag of broccoli and is now suing for damages.
Neville Linton, 63, picked it up along with a bag of veggies and took the snake home without thinking.
Man gets the shock of his life when he finds a snake in a bag of broccoli and demands money for it.
The man Neville, who cleans factories, couldn’t believe what he saw.
“It was pretty scary.” That’s not how I deal with snakes, he said. “The broccoli would have been moving around the house if I hadn’t taken it inside when I left it out in the kitchen.”
“We have two weak people living here, so that would have been a huge risk for us.”
He asked his sister Ann-Marie Tenkanemin to help him figure out what it was because it was too big to be a bug. She told him it was a snake.
They put it in a tub and went back to the Dudley Road Aldi shop where Neville bought it.
For a moment I thought she was kidding, but I pulled away when I saw it start to move. He said, “The guy in the shop was pretty scared too.”
The snake was taken to a nearby zoo, where experts identified it as a young ladder snake.
Man gets the shock of his life when he finds a snake in a bag of broccoli and demands money for it.
Dr. Steven J. Allain, a herpetologist, thinks it might be a viperine water snake.
Man gets the shock of his life when he finds a snake in a bag of broccoli and demands money for it.
The animal was taken to Dudley Zoo, where the staff thinks it is a young ladder snake. Bored Panda talked to Dr. Steven J. R. Allain, though, and he doesn’t agree.
Allain told us, “After looking at the real picture of the snake in the broccoli, I’m not sure the zoo correctly identified the species.” “The snake I see is a viperine water snake (Natrix maura), a harmless species that eats fish and lives in southwestern Europe and northern Africa.”
After getting his bachelor’s degree in biology from Anglia Ruskin University and his master’s degree from Imperial College London, Allain is now a Ph.D. student at the University of Kent. Right now, he’s mostly studying the effects of ophidiomycosis on barred grass snakes (Natrix helvetica) and how their populations change over time. But he’s also interested in frog diseases and population ecology.
“Because a lot of the food grown and brought into the UK comes from the Mediterranean, it shouldn’t be a surprise that a species from that area was found in some vegetables that were probably grown there.” I think the snake was probably moving through the field at the time, getting caught by farm equipment, and then hiding in the broccoli.
Man gets the shock of his life when he finds a snake in a bag of broccoli and demands money for it.
Traveling to the UK and then to Neville’s house took a while, but Allain said that these snakes can go a couple of months without eating. The cold fridge would have also helped keep its metabolism low, which lowers the body’s energy needs.
“But I don’t think it would have been comfortable,” he said. “Especially the quick change from the warm Mediterranean climate to a cooler one so the broccoli stays fresh.”
Periplus water snakes are only dangerous to fish and frogs. People think they are not poisonous to humans because they don’t bite as a way to defend themselves—they’d rather play dead.
Allain said, “I know this must have been a hard time for Neville, especially since he is afraid of snakes. But his response could have been better if more people knew about snakes and how to handle situations like this.” “The snake didn’t mean to be in that bad spot at that time, but I hope its new home at Dudley Zoo can help people get over their fears of snakes.”
Man gets the shock of his life when he finds a snake in a bag of broccoli and demands money for it.
Neville wants to be paid for all of this. A man gets the shock of his life when he finds a snake in a bag of broccoli and demands payment.
Neville has been given some money, but he wants more.
The dad of three kids said the amount he heard wasn’t fair because his crippled son and weak mother-in-law live in the same house and are at risk.
Furthermore, he said, “It’s not good enough.” “If it got out in the house, it would have been very bad for us.” Plus I’m afraid of snakes, so that has a mental effect as well.
“Our supplier has never had a complaint of this nature and has robust processes in place to prevent such issues from occurring,” said a spokesperson for Aldi.
“This was a one-time thing that happened, and we’re looking into it. We’re also sorry to Mr. Linton that our usual high standards were not met.”
