A grandma bought a box of grapes and she was shocked to see a live tarantula crawled out from within.
But the most horrifying thing is she was about to feed the grapes to her young grandchildren.
The 63-year-old Gillian Shiver said that an 8cm (3in) arachnid crawled out of the middle ‘like the stuff of nightmares’ when she opened the box of grapes.
She screamed and called her 69-year-old husband Tony, he came and killed the spider by pouring boiling water on it.
Their daughter Helen decided to take grapes and spider back to the supermarket to ask for an explanation.
Helen said: “She got the shock of her life that’s for sure. She said it was the stuff of nightmares.
“My mum usually buys the grapes and washes them before giving them to my kids but as she went to do so it just crawled out towards her from the center of the bunch.”
“These things can shoot spikes and are venomous. It may not be able to kill people but it could give a nasty bite so her first concern was for her grandchildren.”
“She screamed for my dad and he came down and poured boiling water on it. People have criticized us for killing it – but imagine being faced with a live tarantula in your grapes.”
“They say they are only aggressive if threatened but I think it probably would have felt pretty threatened after being hauled up in a box of grapes for God knows how many days and travelling that far.”
“It was amazing that it survived the journey, it would have been in fridges between 0-5 degrees. Apparently, they don’t hang around fruit either, so it’s pretty unusual.
“I took it back to the store and at first they didn’t seem that bothered, they just said ‘oh we get spiders in fruit such as bananas all the time.’
“I said ‘but this is a bloody tarantula.’ They have now taken the spider back and launched an investigation.
“It’s not something you see every day and certainly gave my mum a shock, to say the least.”
After the incident took place, Dr. Sara Goodacre from the University of Nottingham’s School of Life Sciences claimed, the spider has been identified as a baby mygalomorph tarantula which is usually found in Chile.
A spokesperson from the RSPCA gave advice on what to do if you find any creature in your grapes.
They said: “The RSPCA receives a number of calls every year after members of the public return home from holiday or buy fruit from the shops to find a stowaway spider, lizard or scorpion on board.”
“While they are concerned for the welfare of these animals, as they’re not native to this country and may well have faced an extremely long and arduous journey, the RSPCA would always advise people to treat any unidentified animal with caution until identified accurately, and not to handle an animal that has been discovered as accidentally imported.”