{"id":678544,"date":"2026-05-18T12:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T12:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/678544\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T12:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T12:01:14","slug":"romaine-calm-live-frog-found-in-discount-supermarket-lettuce-bag-western-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/678544\/","title":{"rendered":"Romaine calm: live frog found in discount supermarket lettuce bag | Western Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a group of housemates in Western Australia<\/a> bought a pair of lettuces in a sealed plastic bag \u2013 reduced for quick sale to $1.15 \u2013 they got two other things for which they could not have bargained. One was a live frog reckoned to be the size of a man\u2019s palm. The other, a slot on national television.<\/p>\n

But despite describing it as \u201cthe most random thing\u201d they had encountered upon opening a packet of leafy greens from the supermarket, Laura Jones and Billie Le Pine fronted their interview on ABC news breakfast<\/a> with a series or ready made one liners.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, if I was in a French supermarket, I probably would have got a two for one deal on that one,\u201d Jones quipped.<\/p>\n

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As it turns out, the town on the shores of the Southern Ocean in which that bag of lettuce was bought, Esperance, was named for a French frigate \u2013 and its twin city is St Martin de R\u00e9. But far from an intended gastronomical addition, Woolworths<\/a> said this was an \u201cisolated incident\u201d it was investigating \u201cas a priority\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur suppliers have rigorous processes to maintain product quality,\u201d a company spokesperson said. \u201cFor heads of lettuce this involves washing and a number of quality checks, which includes checking for foreign materials, before they are packaged and sent to our stores.\u201d<\/p>\n

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And Jones and Le Pine weren\u2019t even the ones who opened the packet.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll credit to our flatmates eh,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt\u2019s their lettuce and they came home and he\u2019s just in the kitchen cookin\u2019 up and then he\u2019s like: \u2018bro, there\u2019s a frog in my lettuce.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one of the most relaxed Australians you\u2019ll ever find\u201d.<\/p>\n

Though also highly relaxed, Jones and Le Pine are New Zealanders \u2013 as evidenced by her All Blacks and his Warriors guernseys. That and the fact Le Pine\u2019s accent was so thick the ABC host had to make him repeat his lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe named him Greg, so he had a name at least, yeah,\u201d Le Pine said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry what did you name him?\u201d anchor James Glenday asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreg,\u201d Le Pine said.<\/p>\n

Jones and Le Pine not only gave Greg a name, but a ceremonial release into a nearby dam.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought we\u2019d give him a wee send off tune,\u201d Le Pine said. \u201cAnd we played him Crazy Frog for him. So he was pretty happy again\u201d.<\/p>\n

Which meant that when Greg slipped back into the wild, his true identity would remain a mystery.<\/p>\n

Frog expert \u200b\u200bDr Jodi Rowley was traipsing through the Blue Mountains in search of reptiles on Monday afternoon, so could not definitely ID the species on the small screen to which she had access.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s a bell frog for sure,\u201d she said. \u201cIf it came from WA, then it\u2019s a relatively common species of frog called the motorbike frog. If it is from the east coast, then it is either the green and golden bell frog, or the southern bell frog \u2013 and both of those species are threatened.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I guess the origin of that lettuce is the big question.\u201d<\/p>\n

While admitting it was \u201cvery strange\u201d to see such a big frog in such a small bag, Rowley has written about the \u201cthousands of \u2018stowaway\u2019 frogs\u201d<\/a> that are \u201cinadvertently shipped from all around Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly, it is a thing that frogs accidentally hitchhike,\u201d she told the Guardian. \u201cThey go to sleep on a pile of bananas or a lettuce \u2013 or whatever the case may be \u2013 and they end up getting packaged\u201d.<\/p>\n

While the herpetologist said the release of Greg was \u201cwell meaning\u201d, she encouraged anyone else who finds a frog in their shopping to put it in a container and contact an expert to have it identified. Both because the amphibious hitchhiker would be unlikely to survive conditions hundreds from its natural habitat and to prevent the spread of diseases among frogs.<\/p>\n

\u201cTypically, [stowaway frogs are] rehoused, quarantined \u2013 and then they become people\u2019s pets,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But while Jones and Le Pine and their flatmates may have missed out on a free pet, they did not leave the exchange entirely empty handed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have spoken to the customer to apologise and provide a replacement item,\u201d the Woolworths spokesperson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a group of housemates in Western Australia bought a pair of lettuces in a sealed plastic bag…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-678544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}