A woman returned from holiday with more than she bargained for after finding a venomous centipede had stowed away in her luggage.
Bryony Benfield Pritchard discovered the Scolopendra cingulata – banded centipede – in her laundry after returning from holiday near Malaga in Spain in July.
After the initial shock of finding the centipede, which experts say can inflict a very painful bite, Bryony made the centipede part of the family for a few weeks, keeping it alive, before taking it to the Magic of Life Butterfly House in Cwm Rheidol, near Aberystwyth, where owners have given a home to the centipede – now named Pedro.
Bryony said: “Once home we emptied out the washing onto the floor just before loading into the washing machine.
“As I was loading the items, out popped this large, fast and very fluid little critter.
“I screamed and grabbed our small boy and my husband dashed for a glass to trap him in before he hid beneath the kitchen cupboards.”
“Thankfully he caught him, and we set to work figuring out what he was.
“To our horror we found out it was a venomous centipede.
“I was a little nervous about him, of course, but was so amazed at how far this little critter had travelled I didn’t want to stamp on him - which I’m sure most might have done.”
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