Men caught with tiny primates in their underwear in Delhi airport

GlobalPost

Ever tried to board a plane with a small, primitive primate in your underpants? Three men caught at the Delhi airport en-route from Bangkok to Dubai have.

The BBC reported this morning that three men were arrested in conjunction with the smuggling of a duo of slender lorises, a variety of primate native to India and Sri Lanka. 

The men had apparently stashed the creatures in pockets in their briefs, discovered when they were detained in Delhi.

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The animals have been taken to a holding facility, and are allegedly in "OK but deteriorating" condition, according to the BBC. 

Lorises are small primates that have become rather popular pets, due to their cute appearance, and, as you might have guessed, somewhat languid behavior.

Lorises are also considered to have medicinal properties in many parts of Asia, which tends to be exceptionally bad news for tropical wildlife. 

Further, as slow lorises have a poisonous bite (no, really!), they are often cruelly defanged for the pet trade. In the wild, the slow loris actually secretes venom from a patch in its elbow, which it mixes with saliva in its mouth prior to going on on the offensive.

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You do not want to anger a wild slow loris—and we can presume that the smuggler described above had taken the precaution of defanging the animals before putting them down his pants. 

The underpants technique of transporting exotic wildlife has become rather popular: in 2010, a German reptile collector was jailed in New Zealand for attempting to transport over 40 valuable skinks and geckos in his underpants. Squirmy. 

Lorises are poisonous by nature, but they do have some pretty adorable hijinks. Watch what we mean in the video below:

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