Neville Linton, 63, was doing an ordinary grocery shop on an ordinary day. However, he found a “terrifying” surprise in a bag of broccoli. He had bought groceries as usual from an Aldi in West Midlands, England. But a few days later, while cooking, he opened the bag and discovered a snake nestled in the vegetables. It is a person with ophidiophobia’s worst nightmare. Unfortunately, Linton was afraid of snakes. A sneaky snake rattles the grocery shopper Linton, who works in industrial cleaning, was rescued by his relatives who stepped in and took the snake away from him. The grandfather of one of them admitted: “It was pretty scary. I’m not good with snakes. Luckily I didn’t just leave the broccoli in the kitchen, otherwise it would have been lying loose around the house. That would have been a big risk for us because two vulnerable people live here.” After finding the creature, he called for his sister Ann-Marie Tenkanemin, 57, who recognized it as a snake.
The couple trapped the reptile in a plastic container and took it back to Aldi. “At first I thought she was joking,” Linton said of Tenkanemin’s identification of the snake, “but I stopped when I saw it start to move. The guy in the store was pretty scared too.” Screenshot of a tweet from DTN News about a man who found a loader snake in broccoli at Aldi Although he was offered some compensation, Linton believes the situation should warrant more since the snake posed a danger to the vulnerable relatives who lived with him, including his disabled son and mother-in-law. “It’s just not good enough – the consequences for us if it got into the house would be huge,” he said. “I also have a phobia of snakes, so that has an emotional impact too.” An Aldi spokesperson commented: “Our supplier has never had a complaint of this nature and has robust processes in place to prevent such issues from occurring. We are investigating this isolated incident and have apologized to Mr Linton for failing to meet our usual high standards.” According to Linton’s son Donovan, 41, a specialist at Dudley Zoo said the creature was a young ladder snake. Although they look scary and can cause a nasty bite, they are not poisonous. They are commonly found throughout Europe, including Spain, Portugal and parts of Italy and France.
They like temperate habitats with a lot of shade such as hedges, forests, vineyards, rodent burrows, hollow trees, orchards and boulders. Ladder snakes tend to be solitary, aggressive and defensive by nature. They fend off attackers by snapping with their sharp fangs and emitting a foul smell. Although they are carnivores, they do not hunt humans. Instead, they feed on rodents such as mice and rabbits, birds, spiders, lizards and insects. The broccoli-invading reptile now lives at Dudley Zoo. The herpetologist Dr. However, Steven J. R. Allain identifies it as a viperine water snake, which is fortunately less dangerous. “After looking at the [actual] photo of the snake in the broccoli, I’m not sure the zoo correctly identified the species,” Allain said. “My expert opinion is that the snake is actually a viper watersnake (Natrix maura), a harmless fish-eating species found throughout southwest Europe and North Africa.” He theorizes how it could have penetrated a broccoli. “Given that a large proportion of the food grown and imported into the UK comes from the Mediterranean region, it is no surprise that a species from this area appears in some vegetables likely to be grown there.
My opinion is that at this point the snake was probably moving through the field before being picked up by farm equipment and then taking refuge in the broccoli.” “Viperine water snakes are only dangerous if you are a fish (or a frog). They do not bite humans as a defense mechanism (they prefer to play dead) and are considered non-venomous to humans.” Additionally, these snakes can go months without food, especially in cold temperatures such as in the refrigerator, which would affect their metabolism. But the snake in question would not have liked the change from the Mediterranean warmth to a cooler, crisper drawer.
