Man tries to smuggle turtle onto plane by hiding it in a hamburger

Turtles and burgers usually don't go together - except when they do. Photo: "Turtle Burger" by flickr user 'flaunted'

A man tried to smuggle his pet turtle through security in Guangzhou Baiyun International

Airport by hiding it in a KFC hamburger.

The incident occurred on the morning of July 29, when a man, surnamed Li, was about to board China Southern Airlines flight 345 to Beijing, Guangzhou Daily reported. As Li passed through airport security, X-ray screening machines detected a few “odd protrusions” sticking out of a KFC burger that the man had packed in his bag.

Airport staff determined that the protrusions looked suspiciously like turtle limbs, and asked to inspect Li’s luggage.

“There’s no turtle in there, just a hamburger,” Li reportedly insisted. “There’s nothing special to see inside.”

Li finally acquiesced to an inspection after repeated requests from airport staff, who uncovered the pet turtle hidden inside the burger. When asked why he had devised this strange idea, Li said that he had only wanted to travel together with his “beloved” turtle.

After staff patiently explained that turtles could not be smuggled on board the plane, Li reluctantly agreed to allow a friend to care for his pet while he was away.

A few amused Sina Weibo users commented on the story after it went live, and most said that Li’s affection for his turtle was cute. One user, however, questioned Li’s logic for stuffing his pet into a burger and then sending it through an airport screening machine.

“That poor turtle!” the netizen wrote. “It had to absorb all those X-rays!”