RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM
Keevin Minami, a land vertebrate specialist with the Hawaii Department of Agriculture, yesterday showed a marsupial called the sugar glider that was caught aboard a flight from Las Vegas to Honolulu.
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Fuzzy intruder arrives on Las Vegas-Honolulu flight
'It jumped from her left knee to her right knee. Then it jumped to my left knee, then to my right knee and paused for a minute...'
THE flight crew looked for something resembling a monkey running around an airplane yesterday from Las Vegas to Honolulu. Then a "brown and fuzzy" creature wound up on the lap of Keun Yi Takakawa.
"It kinda bounced around," said husband Ron Takakawa. "It jumped from her left knee to her right knee. Then it jumped to my left knee, then to my right knee and paused for a minute."
That's when he nabbed the furry critter.
"It struggled, so I cupped it in my hands," said Takakawa of Waipahu, noting that it appeared tame and did not bite him.
It turned out to be a sugar glider, a marsupial native to Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea and kept as a pet in parts of the mainland. Sugar gliders are illegal in Hawaii.
Takakawa turned the sugar glider over to the flight crew, who asked him if the animal belonged to him. He said no.
State health inspectors seized the animal when the plane landed and are investigating how it got on the flight. No passengers have claimed it.
RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM
The sugar glider, a marsupial native to Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, is a popular pet in parts of the mainland, but is illegal in Hawaii.
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Sugar gliders, also known as Petaurus breviceps, are so named because of their preference for sweet foods and because they have a membrane similar to that of flying squirrels, which allows them to glide between treetops in their native environments.
State Department of Agriculture officials said the sugar glider measures 10 inches from nose to tail, is gray and white with black stripes down the back.
It is being held at the department's Plant Quarantine Branch until arrangements are made to send it out of state. The Honolulu Zoo is not allowed to display it because sugar gliders are prohibited in Hawaii.
Penalties from possessing illegal animals include fines of up to $200,000 and up to three years in jail.