The man went to the grocery store to get food, but instead brought home a snake. He didn’t know this until the snake started to get used to his food. A 63-year-old man named Neville Linton bought a bag of broccoli at an Aldi shop in Stourbridge, England. He put it in the fridge and found the snake three days later when he took it out to cook a meal.
But when he took the broccoli out of its packaging, he was surprised to see someone he didn’t expect. Read on to find out what happened, and don’t miss our interview with Dr. Steven J. R. Allain, who is also known as “The Pop-Punk Herpetologist.”
A snake from the southwest of Europe was found in a field of broccoli and then taken to a British store.
The 63-year-old Neville Linton grabbed it along with a bag of veggies and brought the snake home without realizing it.
Neville, who cleans factories, couldn’t believe what he saw.
“That was pretty scary.” He said, “I’m not good with snakes.” “Thank goodness I didn’t just leave the broccoli out in the kitchen; it would have been all over the house.”
“That would have been very dangerous for us because two weak people live here.”
As soon as he realized it wasn’t a caterpillar, he called his sister Ann-Marie Tenkanemin for help. She was right when she said it was a snake. They put it in a box and went back to the Dudley Road Aldi store where Neville got it.
“At first I thought she was joking, but when I saw it move, I backed off.” “Even the guy in the shop was pretty scared,” he said.
Experts at a nearby zoo told the people who caught the snake that it was a young ladder snake.
A herpetologist named Dr. Steven J. R. Allain thinks it might be a viperine water snake.
Allain said that after seeing the picture of the snake in the broccoli, he doesn’t think the zoo correctly named the species. He thinks it’s a viperine water snake, which is a safe species that lives in southwestern Europe and northern Africa and eats fish.
At Anglia Ruskin University, Allain got his bachelor’s degree in biology. He then got his master’s degree at Imperial College London and is now working on his Ph.D. at the University of Kent. His study is mostly about the population ecology of barred grass snakes and how ophidiomycosis affects them. It also looks at diseases that affect amphibians and their populations.
There is a lot of food from the Mediterranean region that is grown and taken into the UK, so it is not surprising to find a species from that area in some vegetables that are likely grown there. Based on what I know, the snake was probably moving across the field when it was accidentally caught by farm equipment. It then went to hide in the broccoli.
The trip to the UK and then to Neville’s house took a while. Allain said that these snakes can go months without eating. Its metabolism would have slowed down because the fridge was cold, so it didn’t need as much energy.
“But I don’t think it would have been comfortable,” he said. “Especially how quickly the weather changed from warm in the Mediterranean to cooler, so the broccoli would stay fresh.”
Snakes that look like vipers are only dangerous to fish and frogs. People don’t bite them as a way to defend themselves—they’d rather play dead—and they aren’t thought to be poisonous to people.
Allain said, “I know this must have been a frustrating time for Neville, especially for someone who 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 the wrong place at the wrong time. Hopefully, its new home at Dudley Zoo will help people get over their fears of snakes.”
After going through all of this, Neville is trying to get paid.
Neville was given money as settlement, but he wants to talk about getting a bigger amount. He thinks the first offer wasn’t fair because it put his crippled son and weak mother-in-law, who both live with him, in danger.
Adding, “It’s just not good enough,” “It would have been very bad for us if it got out in the house.” Also, I’m afraid of snakes, so that has an emotional 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 an isolated incident, and we’re looking into it. We’re also sorry to Mr. Linton that our usual high standards were not met.”
