A TESCO customer discovered "the world's most venomous spider" cocooned in a bunch of bananas.
Adam Shepherd was shopping at the supermarket when he made a shocking discovery.
He found what is believed to be a deadly Brazilian Wandering Spider nesting in the supermarket fruit.
Adam snapped the cocoon with the "spider's leg coming out" at the store in Lotbridge, Eastbourne.
He then handed over the contaminated bunch of bananas to Tesco staff before sharing the image on social media.
Adam shared the photo of an arachnophobe's worst nightmare on social media - much to the horror of Facebook users.
One user described the find as "terrifying" while another worried if the eight-legged creature was "wandering around the store".
Despite dozens of people expressing their shock at the discovery, Adam says he was unperturbed.
He revealed that he used to work at Tesco and had seen cocooned spiders "quite a few times".
Mr Shepherd told The Argus: "I wasn't really that shocked as I used to work produce for Tesco and I've seen it quite a few times.
"No idea what kind it was but it was definitely a brown colour
"You can just about see its leg coming out."
Brazilian wandering spiders are large, with leg spans reaching about six inches when fully grown.
The species vary in colour, though all are hairy, mostly brown and may have a black spot on their bellies.
The arachnids "are called wandering spiders because they do not build webs but wander on the forest floor at night, actively hunting prey," according to the Livescience website.
They kill by both ambush and direct attack.
Deadly tropical spiders making their way to Sussex is not uncommon. In 2012, an eagle-eyed shop worker spotted an eight-legged hitchhiker which had made its way from the tropics to the UK.
The Shoreham Tesco employee saw a large spider that had somehow made its way into the country in delivery of bananas.
Thankfully the spider was dead when it was discovered and the company insisted there was no chance of it reaching the shop floor.
The spider is thought to be a huntsman, also known as a banana spider or giant crab spider, which has a harmless though painful bite.
Tesco was contacted but declined to comment.
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