Flying Monkey Travels Coach

A man smuggled a monkey onto a Spirit Airlines flight from Ft. Lauderdale to LaGuardia yesterday by hiding it under his hat. Fellow passengers caught on when the small primate—a baby marmoset the size of a fist—came out and hung on the man's ponytail. The monkey-smuggler, whose flight originated in Lima, Peru, is being questioned at La Guardia. Fellow-passengers credited the monkey for being well-behaved.

When passengers noticed the stowaway, they asked the man "if he knew he had a monkey on him," says the airline's spokeswoman. The monkey, aparently healthy, will probably be quarantined for a month and eventually sent to a zoo. No word on any possible charges for his smuggler. But officials felt the need to add this reassurance :"There was no national security issue." (More monkey stories.)