A student got more than she bargained for when she opened a clothing parcel from fast-fashion firm Shein to discover a live scorpion.
“I thought it was a toy – and then it moved,” Sofia Alonso-Mossinger said, adding it had been “pretty scary”.
With the help of her flatmates at the University of Bristol, the venomous invader was moved into a tub before being collected by an expert.
China-based Shein said it had conducted an internal investigation and had confirmed that “all standard operating processes have been adhered to”.
The electrical and electronic engineering student said: “I unzipped the outer packaging and saw something move and was like, what’s this?”
After realising it was a scorpion, Ms Alonso-Mossinger, 18, rezipped the bag containing a pair of boots, got it out of her room and called her flatmates.
“I thought I was dreaming,” she said. “I feel like I am all right with spiders and things but it was scary being in my room with a random scorpion.”
Phoebe Hunt, 18, said she heard screaming and rushed out to find her flatmate with “a live scorpion in a bag on her boots”.
She said they were “not exactly buzzing to have a scorpion in the flat”.
“At first, I’ll be honest, I said we should kill it and then everyone pointed out that wasn’t the most humane thing so we scooped it up and put it in a Tupperware.”
Oliver James, another flatmate who is studying zoology, transferred the scorpion into a plastic container with kitchen tongs.
“It was a bit nerve-wracking,” he said, as no one knew how venomous it was.
Sofia Alonso-MossingerThe flatmates then gave the scorpion water on kitchen towel, which it drank immediately, and some card to hide under before contacting animal groups.
Phoebe said they had tried the RSPCA but realised it was more set up to collect cats and dogs, before getting in touch with the National Centre for Reptile Welfare (NCRW).
The charity was able to send someone over within a couple of hours.
NCRW’s Chris Newman said reports of such stowaways were surprisingly frequent.
“The scorpion is Olivierus martensii, it doesn’t really have a common name other than Chinese scorpion,” he said.
He said its sting would be “medically significant… potentially life threatening but an average adult would just have a really bad day”.
“It is quite worrying this is the second one we have had in under a month that has come in this way.”
Fortunately there was no sting in the tail of this tale, and Ms Alonso-Mossinger said it now felt “like it is a funny story… but it was pretty scary at the time”.
Shein said it was in touch with her to resolve the issue.
In a statement it said: “After receiving the feedback, we immediately conducted an internal investigation.
“Our teams on the ground have checked the shipment packing process and carried out an inspection of the goods in our warehouse and have confirmed that all standard operating processes have been adhered to.”