| 1 | Sydney lettuce lurker |
Some Australians view cities as a sanctuary against the slithering danger of the surrounding countryside, but rest assured that snakes will always find a way in if they want to. Sydney resident Alex White discovered this in 2021, when he bought two heads of cos lettuce from an Aldi supermarket.
White cycled home, lettuce in his backpack. He greeted his partner Amelia Neata, unpacked the lettuce onto the kitchen table, and then noticed a huge worm inside. Except that it wasn’t a worm, he soon realised, as a small snake began flecking its tongue.
The creature was a pale-headed snake measuring 20cm, a small species which still has a venomous bite capable of inducing blurred vision, nausea and drowsiness. The snake had travelled 540 miles from the original lettuce packing plant in Toowoomba, Queensland. To his peril, White noticed that the lettuce’s plastic packing was torn, so he grabbed both snake and lettuce and shoved them into a secure plastic food container.
Reptile coordinator Gary Pattinson turned up to remove the snake. “It’s the first snake I’ve ever had in sealed, packed produce,” he said “We get frogs in them all the time”, he added. Aldi stated that they were investigating, and insisted that their stores weren’t natural snake habitats.
| 2 | German broccoli snake |
To small critters in a Spanish crop field, a bunch of broccoli is their equivalent of a shady tree. It’s the perfect overhanging plant to hide under when predatory birds are looming overhead, and that’s probably the origin story of this terrifying supermarket tale from 2021.
The setting was an Edeka grocery store in Berlin. A woman entered the store, headed up the vegetable aisle, and grabbed a bunch of prepacked broccoli. To her surprise, the broccoli had a baby snake curled around it, inside the packaging.
The greyish snake had been sealed in plastic, and transported all the way by road from Spain’s crop fields to Germany. It had only survived with enough oxygen due to its tiny, 12cm size. The woman escaped a lethal bite, and the store’s managers called the fire brigade, who in turn called the police.
It took a specialist team of 6 experts to safely remove the (probably confused) snake, which was identified as a harmless viperine water snake. The next shock came for the owner of a Berlin animal shelter, who was probably confused when he saw a policeman walking over with a random stalk of broccoli in his hand.
| 3 | South Africa dairy python |
This supermarket incident started with a scream of “SNAKE” from the dairy aisle. It happened in a Spar supermarket in Cape Town, South Africa, and manageress Martie Esnouf dashed over in seconds, heeding the call.
Amidst stacks of yoghurts and cartons of milk, Esnouf saw a 3 metre African rock python, curled up and resting. The rock python is sub-Saharan Africa’s longest snake species, and ranks in the top 5 longest worldwide.
A snake catcher was summoned, who seized the python with his bare hands and dragged it out into the aisle, revealing its massive length as terrified shoppers watched on. “I don’t know it got in there but it could have come in through the roof or the drains and it ended up in the shop fridge” said Esnout.
There was one saving grace though, as this supermarket snake was particularly drowsy. Because the python had slept in the fridge for an estimated 48 hours, it had entered hibernation mode and its organs had started to shut down. There was no chance of it suddenly getting hungry and coiling around a shopper’s neck. The python was ultimately bundled into a sack, and shipped off for 48 hours of medical evaluation, before being released into a National Park.
| 4 | Sydney spice aisle snake |
Woolworth’s is the most powerful supermarket chain in Australia. Its shelves offer everything you need, including meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and last but not least, carpet pythons.
One morning in August 2021, 25 year old Helaina Alati dropped into a Woolworth’s on the outskirts of northwest Sydney to buy some spices. Everything went well, until she turned her head and came face to face with a carpet python only 20cm away. The python was resting on a shelf, but not lunging to bite, just flecking its tongue curiously.
Alati was lucky – she was an experienced snake handler, having participated in 20 rescues. The python turned out to be 3 metres long, yet people had been walking past it all morning, casually grabbing spice jars without looking.
Alati believed that it had entered via the roof, which carpet pythons tend to be attracted to. “It was chill, and not aggressive at all,” she said. It wasn’t that surprising, as this particular Woolworths was directly next to rugged Australian bushland.
Alati rushed home and grabbed her personal snake removal equipment, and the calm and friendly carpet python was soon dropped into the wild. Alati simply tapped the snake on the tail, and it slithered right into the bag, as though it had decided to cooperate.
| 5 | Thailand tales |
Thailand is basically a science project in staying alive in a country owned and operated by snakes, and the nation’s supermarkets are no different. Our first story involves the world’s official longest snake species – a reticulated python lurking in a 7-eleven, in the town of Si Racha. The python had lain relaxing near the store’s fridge for approximately 24 hours, near a fan that pumped out a warm supply of air.
Then it decided to move into the open, and the result was sheer terror. Shopgoers panicked, and not without reason, as reticulated pythons are non-venomous, but know to target small children. Snake catchers lured the python into a canvas bag and transported it to the wild, measuring it at 4 metres.
A 2020 tale was even more worrying, featuring the deadly monocled cobra, which has the highest annual death toll of any Thai snake. It all began when employee Panupong heard hissing emanating from the cashier counter cupboard. Curiosity overcame him, and he opened the door to reveal the angry cobra’s face, causing Panupong and everyone in the vicinity to flee.
Reptile handlers soon arrived with equipment, but the cobra was now even angrier, as its tail was caught in a mouse trap. It took 20 minutes to remove the raging cobra safely, before freeing it in the deep woods.
| 6 | Target bean aisle snake |
If you want a can of beans in the USA, you’ll usually get them, but occasionally, you may receive a 2 metre black ratsnake instead. This 2021 tale took place in a Target in Beaver Creek Commons, North Carolina. Diane Dupre was originally from upstate New York, and unused to giant snakes appearing from nowhere.
At first, Dupre thought the ratsnake was a children’s toy, and started looking around for a camera filming a practical joke. The snake wasn’t moving, and she was sure it was fake.
Dupre grabbed her baked beans as planned, and started taking a photo, but then the ratsnake flecked its tongue. Dupre and the snake were all alone in the aisle, so she decided to call for help. “I looked up and down the aisle and I was calmly freaking out,” she said.
Fortunately, black ratsnakes are completely non-venomous, but their bites can be painful and infected with bacteria. The Target crew managed to deal with the ratsnake themselves, dropping it in the wild, before disinfecting the bean shelf where it was relaxing. They theorised that the ratsnake had infiltrated the store using a shopping cart, and planned to hire a bug squad to sweep the entire store for its mates.
Dupre, meanwhile, thought that it was exciting, and planned to tell the story for years.
| 7 | Tesco tales |
The UK’s largest supermarket chain is Tesco, with Sainsbury’s constantly nipping at its heels in second place. In 2012, a store worker innocently wandered into the toilets in Tesco Salford, only to jump back in shock after finding a two week old corn snake on the floor.
The snake was resting in a plastic tub left by a customer – whether it was abandoned or simply forgotten was never proven. Animal-loving store worker Glen Hodges volunteered to take it home. The corn snake is native to the USA – it’s the most popular pet snake worldwide, but that also makes it the top escapee worldwide.
In 2012, it was the turn of the California kingsnake, a non-venomous species with vivid black and white scales. The 1 metre snake was spotted by a customer in the crisp aisle of the Knocknagoney Tesco in east Belfast. It wasn’t the latest cute animal mascot for a bag of cheese puffs, it was just a snake.
The snake had probably escaped from its owner’s cage, and sought the warmth of the huge Tesco supermarket in order to escape the cool Irish climate. Employees contacted the store’s technical department, although this probably wasn’t a technical issue they were used to.
| 8 | The nightmare turns real |
Sometimes, true horror takes place and the snake lurking in a supermarket fruit aisle manages to lunge and bite you. Two such incidents happened in Germany, the first involving a 76 year old woman in 2018. The woman was doing her weekly grocery shopping in the state of Thuringia, and headed for the fruit aisle. As she picked up an orange, she felt a stinging pain on her mid-section.
When the woman arrived home, she saw two blackening marks on her stomach. Her doctor confirmed the origin: a snakebite. Yet the species remained unknown, as the shopper never saw the snake, and it was never caught.
The Thuringia supermarket was closed down, and the German authorities tried to trace the snake’s origins via the original orange dealer. Employees even placed double-sided tape on the supermarket floor, hoping for the snake to get stuck. Thankfully, the elderly woman recovered well.
A 2009 incident, meanwhile, involved a 44 year old British tourist in a discount supermarket. She felt a sharp pain on her toe, then looked down to see a European viper (AKA adder) in the throes of a red mist rage. The snake quickly fled, but while relatively small, the bite was sufficient to allow venom in. The woman spent a precautionary night in hospital, and the 25cm adder was hunted down on the supermarket floor and caught.
| 9 | Banana danger |
There are countless horror films in which the protagonist drives his car away, thinking he’s escaped, before seeing the villain rise up in his rear view mirror and meeting a grisly demise. In 2015, something similar happened in Krems, Austria when a woman was driving away from the supermarket, having just bought a box of bananas.
To her shock, a snake slithered out from the bag behind her. The snake bore a strong resemblance to a viper, and a local snake catcher known as “Mr Rattlesnake” or “Snake Pope” was rapidly summoned. Both the banana bunch and snake were Spanish, but the snake thankfully turned out to be a harmless viperine watersnake, which mimics local vipers for its own protection.
Bananas might be the ultimate fruit for creepy crawlies to lurk in and be transported thousands of miles, as spiders, scorpions and even lizards have popped up in supermarket aisles. New Zealand saw its own incident in 2021, when workers spotted a dead snake in a freshly delivered banana box, intercepting it before customers could have a heart attack.
The snake measured 20.7cm, and turned out to be a mildly venomous ornate cat-eyed snake. It was imported from Ecuador, but this time, the 7000 mile journey had proven to be too much.
| 10 | Walmart: snake capital USA |
The most likely place in the US to meet a supermarket snake seems to be any Walmart in Texas. The first incident happened in the parking lot of a Walmart in Savannah, when an employee saw a ratsnake coiled around a collection of shopping carts. A police officer heard the scream from far in the distance. Fortunately, John Heckaman, AKA the Snake Charmer, was on hand to grab the snake, and was only bitten once in the process. Heavy rains were blamed, which had forced snakes away from their usual habitats.
Just one week later, a serpent in Marshall’s Walmart store decided to block a woman from entering her car. The woman moved sideways, the snake moved sideways – the snake was determined to deny her access. It turned out to be another ratsnake, huge yet mostly harmless. The police then arrived and scooped up the ratsnake barehanded.
In August 2020, Odessa got its turn, as a huge brown snake slithered confidently down the aisle of the local Walmart, as witnessed by employees during a routine check of the store. The species wasn’t identified, but the consensus in the Facebook comments was a harmless bullsnake.