Catering staff at the National Trust for Scotland’s café in Edinburgh's Charlotte Square were served up a surprise on Monday, when they discovered a live lizard in a bag of fresh salad leaves that had been imported from Israel.
The restaurant manager discovered the dazed creature in a bag of rocket salad leaves.
Conservationists at the charity identified it as a Lebanon Lizard and set up a temporary home for the creature in a converted CD holder which they placed on a computer monitor to keep the lizard - now nicknamed Rocky - warm.
The Trust’s nature conservation adviser Lindsay Mackinlay said: "It is absolutely fantastic that Rocky has survived.
"He's obviously been in transit for a number of days and would probably have been refrigerated throughout much of the journey.
"We suspect he would have survived by slowing down his metabolism and going into a state of hibernation.
"Thankfully he’s doing well and is very alert now that he has warmed up a bit."
The National Trust for Scotland are now trying to find Rocky a permanent home.
Last updated: 28 October 2009, 13:28
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