From a deadly spider lurking in a bunch of bananas to a wily coyote hiding in a refrigerator, here are 10 of the most surprising supermarket wildlife discoveries. Warning: You may never eat a bagged salad again!
A beast in the bunch, Edinburgh, Scotland
A shop worker at a supermarket in Edinburgh, Scotland, got an eight-legged surprise when a large poisonous spider crawled out of a bunch of bananas that had been put out on display. The banana spider, which has a 10cm leg span, had survived the journey from Colombia by going into a deep sleep before emerging from its slumber under the Scottish supermarket lights to cause widespread panic.
Shop worker, Petra Merriman, 45, caught the spider before calling the Scottish animal welfare charity SPCA. The spider was then transported to Edinburgh Butterfly and Insect World, where it later died.
"One of the chaps who was putting a box of bananas in the display took a lid off a box and saw it was curled around a banana,” she recalled. “I brought a pot with a secure lid down with me, and just popped it in.
“Nothing like this has ever happened here before.”
A can for a coffin, Birmingham, England
Sanam Hussain was making a biryani curry at her home in Alum Rock in Birmingham, England, when she opened a tin of chopped tomatoes to make a grisly discovery. Floating in the red juice was the corpse of a dead lizard.
Mrs Hussain, who was seven months pregnant at the time, said the sight of the creature had made her feel ill. "It was disgusting. I am in shock,” she told a reporter from the BBC. "I talked to my midwife about it, and she said if I feel ill, I should contact the hospital."
Her husband said he was alerted by his wife’s screams. “When she opened the can, she saw something and screamed at me to come through. I saw it was a dead baby lizard.”
A wily coyote, Chicago, USA
Staff working in a supermarket in Humboldt Park in Chicago, USA, were forced to call in officials from the city’s Animal Care and Control department when they discovered an adult coyote had hidden in a fridge filled with chilled ready meals.
After managing to extract the coyote from the fridge by its tail, an officer from Chicago Animal Care and Control transported the hairy hideaway to Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation. “While the coyote appeared uninjured, Flint Creek will conduct an assessment to confirm its health before releasing it back into the wild,” he said.
Following the incident, Chicago Animal Care and Control posted information about coyotes on Facebook, including tips for what to do if you encounter a wild coyote.
A stranger in my salad, Hampshire, England
Christina Carrington from Hampshire, England, was hopping mad when she found a live frog hiding in a bag of mixed salad she had bought from her local supermarket.
Her youngest daughter, Daniela, first spotted the frog while preparing their evening meal, after her mum had already eaten some of the salad for lunch. "I was absolutely mortified to think I ate the leaves at lunchtime, when clearly the frog had been in the same bag," she told the Metro newspaper.
Responding to the discovery, a spokesperson for Waitrose croaked, “We are very sorry for the distress caused.
“Although this is an isolated incident, we're investigating with our suppliers as to how this happened. We are also taking steps to minimise the chances of this happening again.”
Meanwhile, the frog was rescued and rehomed by the British animal charity, RSPCA, after surviving its adventure.
A tongue-eating tuna parasite, Nottingham, England
The award for the most stomach-churning discovery has to go to Zoe Butler from Nottingham, England, who opened a tin of tuna to find the decapitated head of a bizarre, alien-looking creature staring back at her with jet black eyes.
Speaking to the Nottingham Post about the ordeal, she said, “I opened the top of the lid and saw a purply thing – a gut sack or intestine – then I turned it round and pushed it with a fork and saw it looking back at me."
Stuart Hine of the Natural History Museum in London later saw the pictures and identified the alien invader as a Cymothoa exigua. This parasitic louse enters a fish through its gills and attaches itself to its host’s tongue.
A woolly invasion, Burgsinn, Germany
Not so much a surprise discovery as a surprise ambush took place in the Bavarian municipality of Burgsinn, in south west Germany, when a herd of 50 wayward sheep broke off from their flock and stormed a store of the discount supermarket chain Penny.
The woolly offenders rushed to explore the aisles and left a trail of destruction in the drinks aisle, before being rounded up and escorted back out of the premises, much to the bemusement of local shoppers.
“It was impossible to tell whether the sheep were looking for something particular on offer or just wanted to warm up,” the company said in a statement, noting that the flock seemed to be drawn to the checkout area, where shocked shoppers and staff were gathered.
“The approximately 20 customers present reportedly took the spontaneous animal visit in their stride,” said Penny spokesman Philipp Stiehler.
A bat in a bag, Florida, USA
The macabre discovery of a dead bat in a bagged salad sold at a Florida supermarket prompted a regional product recall and an investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2017.
The customers discovered the remains of the greater horseshoe bat after they had already eaten some of the salad in a bag of Organic Marketside Spring Mix. They alerted authorities, who sent the bat to a CDC rabies lab. However, the animal’s decayed state prevented a definitive test of whether it had rabies.
Fortunately, neither Floridian showed any signs of rabies, and both reported good health, the CDC said, adding that there had been no other “reports of bat material found in packaged salads”.
Newt what they expected, South Croydon, England
Phillip Caterer-Stentiford from South Croydon, England, got more than he bargained for as he was preparing celery he had purchased at his local supermarket.
As he pulled stalks from the 84p bunch of celery, a small brown creature fell onto his kitchen worktop. As the surprised critter made a break for freedom, he scooped it up and popped it in an old hamster tank in his lounge.
“It was a huge shock, and also a bit of a concern because we’d had some of the celery earlier in the week,” he said.
Philip, wife Karen, 41, and son Archie, four, decided to adopt the stowaway, initially naming it Larry the lizard. However, they later revised the name to Nigella the newt after discovering it was in fact a common newt.
Philip said Aldi offered a £15 voucher and to call the RSPCA to collect the creature.
An Aldi spokesperson said: “Whilst extremely rare, this can occasionally occur with products that are grown in natural conditions.
"We have apologised to Mr Caterer-Stentiford that this product didn’t meet our usual high standards and we have offered a full refund.”
A sliced surprise, Kidlington, England
A food production company was ordered to pay nearly £17,000 after a man discovered the body of a dead mouse, minus its tail, concealed in the corner of a loaf of sliced bread as he prepared sandwiches for his children.
Stephen Forse of Kidlington, Oxfordshire, England, had already used some slices of the bread when he said he noticed “a dark-coloured object embedded in the corner of three or four slices”.
"Initially I thought it was where the dough had not mixed properly prior to baking," he told the BBC. “As I looked closer, I saw that the object had fur on it.”
Mr Forse had purchased the bread online in January 2009. Manufacturer Premier Foods was later fined £5,500 and ordered to pay £11,109.47 in costs at Oxford Crown Court.
A jumbo-sized snack attack, Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand
A hungry elephant caused chaos when it lumbered into a local grocery shop in Thailand’s Nakhom Ratchasima province in 2025.
The jumbo-sized raider, known locally as Plai Biang Lek, had stomped in from the nearby national park, Kha Yai, and helped itself to nine bags of sweet rice crackers, several bananas and a sandwich during the 10-minute raid.
“Business was a bit slow that day,” the shop owner Khamploi Kakaew told CNN. “Around 2pm, the elephant just walked right up. I came out and tried to shoo it away. I told it not to come closer.”
After ignoring the shop manager’s pleas for it to leave while it scooped up a trunkful of tasty treats, the elephant was eventually ushered out of the door by national park rangers, leaving an unpaid bill of around 800 baht, equal to around £18.
Park ranger Danai Sookkhanthachat later told the Associated Press that the elephant has a reputation for breaking into people's homes to raid their pantries. However, this was reportedly the first time it had entered a shop.
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