Austrian authorities have stopped a man at Vienna airport as he tried to smuggle 74 protected chameleons from Africa into the country.
Officials said that a 56-year-old man, who was not identified, had hidden the animals in socks and empty ice cream boxes when he was caught at customs control in Vienna.
He had travelled to Austria from Tanzania via Ethiopia.
Customs at the Vienna airport stopped the smuggling and brought the animals to the zoo (Tiergarten Schönbrunn/Anton Weissenbacher via AP)
The chameleons were taken to the Austrian capital’s Schonbrunn Zoo, which said that three of the animals did not survive.