A mother who found a giant grasshopper in a bag of supermarket salad is keeping the insect – as a family PET.
Kayn Anthoine, 41, bought the bag of Fresh Italian salad from Sainsbury’s for her lunch last week.
But as she prepared her meal the 8cm long Egyptian grasshopper leaped out.
Her two children Marie, 15, and Kieran, 11, have now persuaded their mum to keep the creepy-crawly as a family pet and named her Isis.
Pscychology teacher Karyn said: ”I was scared when I saw it crawl out of the bag, but my daughter would not let me put it in the garden because it was cold and still snowing.
”She was scared the grasshopper would freeze to death. It must have been sleeping because it was cold in the fridge.
”I was feeling quite sick for the first few days, knowing we’d been eating salad from the same bag for that amount of time.
”We found out she is a female Egyptian grasshopper. So we have changed her name to Isis, after the Egyptian goddess.”
Sainsbury’s apologised to Karyn of Market Harborough, Leics., and gave her 4,000 points on her Nectar card – the equivalent of about £20.
Marie, who wants to be a vet, has kept the grasshopper in an insect tank in her room away from her mum.
Initially, Marie named the bug Jiminy Cricket after the character in Pinocchio but after discovering the insect was a female she was forced to give her a name change.
Female Egyptian grasshoppers usually grow to around 6.5cm – making Isis much bigger than similar insects.
Helen Ikin, the grasshopper recorder for Leicestershire Entomological Society, said: ”It’s not exactly common for people to find them, but if something is found in food that has travelled from that part of the world it is usually an Egyptian grasshopper.
”A lot of people do keep them as pets. They are lovely creatures.”
A Sainsbury’s spokesman said: ”It’s really important to us to make sure everything we sell is safe, and we set the highest standards to ensure that this is the case.
”Incidents such as this are very rare, and we take them very seriously indeed. We’ve contacted the supplier of the salad, who is investigating how this has happened.”
Real “I’m a Celebrity” stuff! Generous old Sainsbury’s giving 4,000 Nectar points in compensation….