As if browsing the fruit aisles wasn’t already an experience fraught with danger, a live scorpion has turned up in a bunch of supermarket bananas.
The three-inch long creature was spotted scuttling among the produce as workers restocked shelves at Phoenix Stores in Cornwall.
The venomous stowaway had hitched a ride from Costa Rica along with the bananas and was identified by Newquay Zoo as a juvenile black edged scorpion (centruroides limbatus), which are also native to Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.
You're a long way from home fella: The black edged scorpion hitched a ride from Costa Rica
While the black edged scorpion is not considered dangerous to humans, “nonetheless, they are venomous and being stung by one is no picnic,” writes the Walter Reed Biosystems Unit.
In recent months a number of decidedly dangerous Brazilian wandering spiders have smuggled their way into our shopping baskets and homes – usually via the humble banana.
The three-inch scorpion is now living at Newquay Zoo in Cornwall
In March a family were forced to evacuate their home after a whole nest of the critters installed themselves in their Staffordshire home.
Jamie Roberts had assumed the “white stringy patches” on the fruit were mould but was proved wrong when the nest “hatched” and hundreds of baby spiders began swarming all over his kitchen.
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The same occurred at a west Hampton home in November last year, with the family being temporarily re-homed while their home was fumigated and all their clothes were dry cleaned.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the species has the most active neurotoxic venom of any living spider, hence they are not to be messed with.
And don’t get us started on the false widow spiders…