THERE was a sting in the tail for fitters at a Huddersfield tyre firm.

Workers at Huddersfield Tyre and Exhaust Centre in Wasp Nest Road, Fartown, got a shock when they found a dead scorpion in one of their tyres.

The sinister-looking creature was lying in the rim of a tyre that was being fitted to a customer’s car.

Now the crew at the garage are keen to find out more about the scorpion – and are wondering how it got into their stock of new tyres.

Nikki Bassi, whose brother Jastinder owns the business, said: “One of the workers was fitting a tyre for a customer and spotted something inside it.

“He reached in to get it and at first he thought it was a spider, but one of the other customers said it was a scorpion.

“We attracted quite a crowd once we got it out to look at it more closely.”

Mr Bassi said the tyre was one of a batch from a Wakefield supplier, who explained that the tyres were part of a shipment from a Chinese manufacturer.

But how the scorpion got there remains a mystery.

Mr Bassi said: “It is about three inches long when its tail is stretched out.

“It is brown and glossy, like it has been varnished, but is paler on the underside. We’d like to find out what kind of scorpion it is.”