Man Slips Animal By TSA

Sigh. Screeners in Lima, Peru have some explaining to do, after a man smuggled a tiny monkey onto a Spirit Airlines flight bound for the US Tuesday afternoon.

Multiple news reports state the man purchased the pygmy marmoset off the streets of Lima, before catching the flight to Fort Lauderdale, FL and on to New York. CBS-2 in Chicago reports the man was able to dupe security in Lima, by keeping the monkey under his hat... and once again at FLL, as he waited several hours for his connecting flight to LaGuardia.

Passengers on the FLL-LGA flight said once onboard, the man made no attempt to hide his monkey (please, no letters -- Ed.) The marmoset reportedly spent much of the flight clinging to the man's ponytail -- prompting some to ask "if he knew he had a monkey on him," a Spirit Airlines spokesperson told The Register -- and sitting alongside him.

They, in turn, tipped off the cabin crew... who alerted authorities to be waiting at the gate. Once in New York, both monkey and man were taken into custody.

Officials say there are two significant issues here: how was a monkey able to get past security... and whether the marmoset harbors any diseases that could be passed on to humans, a la "Outbreak."

"We don't know if it's harboring any bacteria or diseases, so the CDC is rightly concerned," an Animal Control official told CBS 2 HD. The monkey is under 30-day quarantine at the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia.

For their parts, the unnamed passenger says he wasn't aware he couldn't bring the animal onboard the plane... and the TSA says the animal was small enough to be sneaked through security without being detected.

But, officials add, the agency is invesigating... which should make us all feel a lot better.

FMI: www.tsa.gov