Tilburg girl finds live scorpion in backpack ordered from Shein
A 9-year-old girl in Tilburg got a terrifying surprise this week when she discovered a live scorpion inside a new backpack ordered from the Chinese webshop Shein, Omroep Brabant reports. The venomous animal had survived the trip from China and was only removed from the family’s home after a series of frantic efforts by the mother, Jacqueline van Rooij.
On Wednesday, Jacqueline’s daughter Arianna was excited to open her new schoolbag as soon as the package arrived. “She suddenly screamed very loudly: ‘Mom, a bug!’ Because she’s not a fan of those,” her mother told Omroep Brabant. “She dropped the bag and stared at it from a distance.”
Initially thinking it might be a moth, Jacqueline was shocked when she looked closer. “I thought: what a strange shape. Then I saw it was a scorpion,” she said. Panicking, she instructed her daughter to open all the doors. “I grabbed the bag and flung the creature out the front door, out of pure fear.”
Jacqueline quickly realized the danger. “I didn’t want to find someone convulsing on the ground because of this,” she told Omroep Brabant. Concerned that the animal could pose a threat to children, dogs, or cats, she went back outside and captured it with a plank and plastic container.
Later, she attempted to call a friend with knowledge about animals, but when that didn’t work, she phoned an ex-girlfriend, asking urgently for help. At first, her friend didn’t believe her, but eventually contacted the Tilburg-based zoo De Oliemeulen for advice. That afternoon, the zoo agreed to take in the scorpion.
Jacqueline couldn’t accompany the animal to the zoo. “I had to go to work and was already running late. Try explaining that to your boss. There was a three-second silence when I told them: ‘There’s a scorpion in my house.’ That’s quite the excuse,” she said, laughing.
Her daughter named the scorpion “Snippie” and asked whether the zoo would kill it. Jacqueline said, “I told her it’s not Snippie’s fault she’s poisonous.”
Scorpions can survive up to a year without food or water, which may explain how the animal endured the overseas shipping process. On Thursday morning, Jacqueline received another surprise call from De Oliemeulen. The scorpion had given birth. “So it was a pregnant female,” she told Omroep Brabant.
That revelation triggered new worries. “Maybe I had more of them in the house,” Jacqueline said. “I don’t know how these things reproduce!” Scorpions can give birth to dozens of offspring. However, staff at the zoo assured her that she and her daughter had nothing to worry about.
Jacqueline and Arianna now plan to visit their unexpected guest and her young at the zoo. Still, Jacqueline remains uneasy about what could have happened. “What if I’d opened the package a day later? What if I’d been stung? I don’t think the antidote for that kind of venom is just lying around everywhere.”
Going forward, Jacqueline says she’ll stick to soft items when ordering from Shein or Temu. “Then I can just jump on it when it arrives — just to be safe,” she told Omroep Brabant, with a laugh.
