Aaron Balick expected to find a tiny mouse rustling behind the TV in his apartment. Instead, he found a venomous giant centipede that somehow hitched a ride from South America to Britain.

Balick trapped the 9-inch-long creature between a stack of books and put it in a plastic container. The next day, he took it to Britain’s Natural History Museum, which identified the insect as a Scolopendra gigantea – the world’s biggest species of centipede.

Stuart Hine, an entomologist at the museum, said it was likely the centipede hitched a ride aboard a freighter, likely with a shipment of fruit.

The Scolopendra gigantea has front claws that are adapted to deliver venom when it stings, which can lead to a blistering rash, nausea and fever. The sting is rarely life-threatening, but painful.