Man couldn't keep marmoset under his hat

A man was questioned at New York's LaGuardia Airport after a marmoset crept out from under his hat.

When passengers noticed the fist-sized primate on the flight, they asked the man "if he knew he had a monkey on him", Ms Russell said. [BBC]

No one knows how the guy managed to fly out of Ft. Lauderdale with a marmoset in his cap. My guess is that the TSA screeners were too busy confiscating contact lens solution to notice that a non-human primate.

Comments

[mudkitty]

I heard he put the ape/monkey in a carrier, under his seat.

[inkybrain]

Well, if it fits in the one quart baggie, it's legal, right?

[A White Bear]

I imagined he needed it for Ratatouille-like reasons.

[Dock Miles]

No doubt about it -- a marmoset up.

[Glenn Raucher]

Is that a Marmoset in your hat, or...

[Graham]

And the Marmoset said "would someone please remove this ugly wart from my ass?".

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

[voxy]

with all the doffing of clothes there is no hat removal?

Things are about to get a lil stricter.
And after we just got liquids back !

[SanderO]

A trained mini terrorist no doubt. Is that a terrorist in your hat or are just glad to see me big guy?

[me]

THE MONKEYS OF TERROR!
He tried to keep it under his hat... with no shampoo, he thought his dirty secret wouldn't have to come out-- until that cheeky monkey made a bid for freedom... OUR FREEDOM!

[cfrost]

Either that’s a very well trained marmoset or the fellow with the hat had evidently never seen the famous marmoset soaks Johnny Carson’s pate incident.

I can’t let a marmoset thread pass without mentioning that it has been recently discovered that members of the marmoset-tamarin group (callithricidae) can father (and possibly mother) their own nieces and nephews.

There are twenty to thirty species of marmosets and tamarins in four genera, all of which inhabit the New World tropics. They’re all very small, with the difference between marmosets and tamarins being that marmosets have jaws and teeth modified for gouging holes in bark for sap and gum. They’re unusual among primates in that they usually give birth to fraternal twins, with the father and older siblings assisting the mother in caring for infants. (Attention family values moralists: this is not necessarily “natural” among primates. Contrast with hamadryas baboons in which the norm is to build a harem by kidnapping underage females.) What makes the callithricidae unusual not only among primates but mammals altogether, is that fraternal twins share a placenta (Gory details here.) through which they swap stem cells that colonize both twins turning them into mosaics –chimeras- of each other’s tissues. It was known since the sixties that this was true of marmoset/tamarin hematopoietic (blood generating) tissue, making them subjects for all sorts of immunological investigations. It wasn’t until DNA paternity/maternity checking in a colony of captive monkeys gave very odd results that it was shown that germ –reproductive- tissue could also be chimerous.

It happens occasionally in humans. You wouldn’t even have to have a twin, if the twin you were born without had swapped stem cells with you before dying in utero. It’s not yet known what proportion of people may be chimeras, as outward appearance wouldn’t give a hint, and there are no known pathological consequences of chimerism.

[badpoetry]

Marmoset there'd be days like these.

[voxy]

cfrost --- wow --- if I'm not careful I will learn stuff from you. That's most interesting and I think NEW information (for me) THANKS !! Makes my day to learn something unique.

[shrimplate]

Well, I'm OK with this as long as the marmoset hadn't been taking flight lessons to learn how to make mid-air turns only.

[me]

Yeah, nice comment cfrost. Thanks :-)

[Ian]

Now that is funny! The monkey must have been asleep under the hat when he went through the check.