LONDON - Aaron Balick expected to find a tiny mouse stirring around behind the TV in his apartment. Instead, he found a venomous giant centipede that somehow made its way from South America to Britain.

He trapped the 9-inch-long creature between a stack of books and put it in a plastic container.

"Thinking it was a mouse, I went to investigate the sound," Balick said Wednesday. "The sound was coming from under some papers which I lifted, expecting to see the mouse scamper away.

"Instead, when I lifted the papers, I saw this prehistoric looking animal skitter away behind a stack of books."

The next day Balick, 32, 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.

"Dealing with over 4,000 public and commercial inquiries every year, we have come to expect the unexpected. However, when Aaron produced this beast from his bag I was staggered," Hine said. "Not even I expected to be presented with this."

The centipede 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, though.