Emotional support spiders. No prob.

Do lice also count as pets? Asking for a friend.

I remember my father flying with a box full of Acomys cahirinus, but that was decades ago. I'm sure there is a lot of great weird stories of scientists transporting their research subjects.

Declare them as fresh food, if that is allowed on planes.

Paging @pzmyers

Ever read Claire Bretecher's "Le destin de Monique" ?
The part with the airport security is grandiose...

That does it. My next band name is Cooler Full Of Spiders.

Ask to speak with the airline web master. (Then suggest duct-taping the cooler shut)

Well, in Australia, to be fair, some of the spiders are as big as cats...

snacks?

@AlexandraErin Follow-up informs that the spiders have been sent by FedEx - https://twitter.com/JayStafstrom/status/1635797664523776006 .

this cracks me up!

Sounds like the setup for a sequel to Snakes on a Plane.

>> Spiders on a Glider

a med student I know will write "placenta" on any container he doesn't want airport personnel investigating. Seems to have worked so far.

Now, if they did open it and it were full of spiders…

Someone knocked a box full of redback spiders off a friend of mine's desk, releasing them all into her office!
Toxin pharmacology has the best stories, including watching people catch dangerous organisms with bare hands.
I think Australian tiger snake anti-venom was developed with venom from a snake that killed the handler. Before he died, the handler said he wanted the anti-venom work continued.

For more entertainment, here's a piece Ed Yong wrote for The Atlantic in 2017.

"Scientists, as it happens, are full of tales like this because as a group, they’re likely to (a) travel frequently, and (b) carry really weird shit in their bags."

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/that-time-the-tsa-found-a-scientists-3d-printed-mouse-penis/527673/

not my story, but told to me the person in question: ended with him standing in some woodland with his trousers around his ankles, surrounded by jars, with his groin area covered in huntsman spiders ... being photographed by a bus load of tourists

"The spiders count as pets" is my new favorite sentence

Pity they're still in Sydney, or they could employ the Subtle Art Of Completely Making Things Up. (ramps up Australian accent):
"Nah, see I gotta be on the early flight, cos these little buggers is what we call 'metamorphic funnel webs'. After midnight, y'see, they get really *big* an can eat right through the cooler. Their natural diet is drop bear, but the next best thing is, an I hate ter say this - human flesh. Then you got a real problem on yer hands. So, eh, we better get movin before that happens, I reckon."

That you
@pzmyers?

Pets??? That is certainly a new excuse.

A friend was traveling back from Tibet and dogs alerted on something. He looks rather "hippie," so security was EXTRA thorough in searching everything. When they finally got to his "special" box and opened it, a guard yelled, "what the hell is that?"

It was a box of hardened human artery segments being brought to the US for research. (my friend had the needed paperwork, but it was hours before it got resolved)

poke @pzmyers

Tell authorities they should let her on a plane or she will open the cooler and walk away.

Amen. This deserves to become an XKCD cartoon.

From Wade Davis' book, "The Serpent and the Rainbow":

try the “emotional support spiders” angle ?

Or friends and family of scientists. A relative of a geologist, with a special interest in sands and soils, was in Cancun, famed for its brilliant fine white sand, so collected some to bring back to him. Picture yourself at the US-Mexico border showing the border guards your baggie of fine white granular material and trying to explain what it is and why you have it.

You're just going to have to drink them all before you get on the plane.

Maybe she should characterize the spiders as emotional support animals instead of pets.

threaten to let them loose? 😅​👍​

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