CANBERRA – Alex White thought he was watching a huge worm writhing in a plastic-wrapped lettuce he’d just brought home from a Sydney supermarket -- until a snake tongue flicked. “I kind of completely freaked out when I saw this little tongue come out of its mouth and start flicking around and realized it was a snake because worms don’t have tongues,” White said on Thursday. “I definitely kind of panicked a bit,” he added.
It was a venomous paled-headed snake that authorities say made an 870-kilometer (540-mile) journey to Sydney from a Toowoomba packing plant wrapped in plastic with a pair of cos lettuces.
The refrigerated supermarket supply chain likely lulled the cold-blooded juvenile into a stupor until White bought the lettuces at an