A sweet shop owner was shocked after finding a monitor lizard cooling off inside his ice cream refrigerator.

Phatpakit Thajai, 33, was worried after hearing bumps from inside the display cabinet for the whole day in Phayao, northern Thailand, on Monday (May 17).

After closing the shop for the evening, he opened up the machine to check whether there was a broken piece.

However, when looking inside the refrigerator he was shocked to see the reptile basking in the cool air as temperatures outside passed 35C.

Rescuer volunteers spent 30 minutes trying to catch the 2ft long aggressive lizard before finally snaring it with a lasso rod.

The relieved owner, Phatpakit, said he was still confused about how the lizard managed to get inside the fridge.

He said: "I'm not sure how long it had been inside the fridge but it had been bumping for the whole day.

"I was surprised to see a monitor lizard inside the machine because I still haven't figured it out how it went in there."