A shopper got the shock of a lifetime when she found a live LIZARD in a punnet of Sainsbury's raspberries.
The customer found the four-legged gecko as she shopped in the Essex's Basildon store for some fruit on May 27.
She picked up the punnet with the reptile inside, took a quick photo and then passed it on to Sainsbury's worker Laura Johnson.
It is unclear how the dark scaled gecko managed to find its way to Essex, but Sainsbury's says it has processes in place to "prevent these sorts of scaly surprises".
Laura said: "I was approached by a customer who had picked them up and she was worried about it being disposed of.
"I passed it onto a supervisor and left it with him. I can only hope he or she wasn't hurt."
A spokesperson for the company continued: "We're investigating with our supplier.
"We're grateful to the customer and colleagues at our East Mayne store, who arranged for the gecko to be collected by the RSPCA."
Geckos are found in every continent across the globe but prefer warm, tropical climates.
It comes after a 20-year-old said she "freaked out" when she saw a highly venomous scorpion scuttling out of her suitcase in April as she unpacked from her trip to South Africa.
Meghan described how she had just returned to her home in Gillingham, Kent, and was pulling clothes out of her case when the arachnid jumped out of and scuttled across her bed.
She said she was surprised the scorpion managed to survive the 9,000 km-trip of 11 hours.
“I was just shocked that this little scorpion had made it all of that way,” she added.
“I guess I thought airport security would have picked up on it.”
Meghan called the RSPCA and animal collection officer (ACO) Brian Milligan went to collect the scorpion.
He said: “The scorpion was small and sandy-coloured. It seemed to be well so I took it straight to our specialist exotics centre in Brighton.”
