Passenger on Florida-New York flight smuggles monkey onto plane under hat

NEW YORK (AP) - An airline official in New York City says a man smuggled a monkey onto an airplane from Florida, stashing the fist-size primate under his hat until passengers spotted it perched on his ponytail.

Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Alison Russell says on a flight from Fort Lauderdale to New York's LaGuardia airport, people around the man noticed a marmoset - which normally lives in forest and eats fruit and insects - had emerged from underneath his hat. The man's journey had begun in Lima, Peru.

Russell says the monkey spent the remainder of the flight in the man's seat and behaved well.

She did not know how the monkey eluded detection in Lima and during the man's several-hour layover in Fort Lauderdale.

LaGuardia airport police were waiting for the man and his monkey when the plane landed and he was taken for questioning.

It was unclear if he would face any criminal charges.

The city's animal control agency said the monkey appeared healthy. But the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was planning to take it for disease testing and keep it quarantined for 31 days, CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

If the monkey is healthy it could wind up in a zoo.