A group of housemates in Western Australia got a little more than they bargained for from a discounted bag of lettuce that they picked up at Woolworths. Hiding in plain sight in the sealed bag was a live frog closely matching the exact color of the produce.

What happened?

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation shared a news segment from the ABC News Breakfast show on its YouTube page (@ABCNewsAustralia), which featured two of the housemates describing the wild incident.

The lettuce was bought in Esperance, Western Australia, by a group of housemates who picked up the marked-down bag for about AU$1.15, as The Guardian detailed. When one of the flatmates went to make food, he spotted a palm-sized frog inside.

Housemates Laura Jones and Billie Le Pine revealed in the TV interview that when they captured footage of the frog, many viewers suspected they were using artificial intelligence to generate the strange sighting. In reality, the incident was 100% real. 

The duo joked about the bizarre find and took the unexpected wildlife interaction in stride. They said they named the frog "Greg," and eventually released it into a nearby dam after playing the Crazy Frog song as a send-off. 

Why is this concerning?

As funny as the story may seem, a frog inside packaged produce shows how easily wildlife can be displaced by human activity. Modern agriculture and long-distance shipping create plenty of chances for small animals to be moved out of the ecosystems they rely on.

"Certainly, it is a thing that frogs accidentally hitchhike," frog expert Dr. Jodi Rowley told The Guardian. "They go to sleep on a pile of bananas or a lettuce — or whatever the case may be — and they end up getting packaged."

Rowley expressed concern about the prospects of what she suspected to be a bell frog, as well as the flatmates' decision to release it. She noted the frog could struggle to survive far from its place of origin and could spread diseases from another region to the local ecosystem. 

Overall, the saga raised concerns about food safety, the transportation of produce to grocery stores, and the effects of agriculture on local animals.

What happened next?

Jones and Le Pine brushed off the incident during their TV appearance and said they didn't reach out to Woolworths. They revealed that they were farmers, reasoning that such moments can occur once in a while.  

Woolworths told The Guardian that it apologized to the customer, provided a replacement item, and began reviewing the incident, which it characterized as "isolated."

Jones continued to find humor in the situation.

"Look, if I was in a French supermarket, I probably would have got a two for one deal on that one," she joked in the interview.

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