A tourist was caught smuggling a prairie dog and two otters through an airport when security staff became suspicious of the large bulge in his pants.

The Taiwanese holidaymaker, 22, crammed the exotic animals bought from a market in Bangkok into his underwear before checking in at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport on December 5.

Guards raised concerns about the unusually large package wobbling below his waist and alerted colleagues at the X-Ray machines. They then held the man for lengthy scans, which shows the critters wriggling around his designer boxer shorts.

Officers pulled him aside for a strip search and found that he was concealing live animals - two Asian small-clawed otters and a prairie dog - in his boxing shorts.

The protected wildlife had been stuffed in three separate stockings taped to the man's pants.

Phakkapong Phathong, Suvarnabhumi Animal Quarantine chief, said the tourist was arrested at 9:05 am and had been due to board Thai Airways flight TG632 to Taipei, Taiwan.

Customs Department spokesman Phanthong Loykulnant added: 'Thailand is not a gateway to smuggle exotic animals out of the country. We will catch anyone who tries to take animals on planes.'

The Taiwanese man is now facing charges for violating several sections of Thailand's Customs Act, Animal Epidemics Act, and Animal Conservation and Protection Act.

He was detained at the Suvarnabhumi Airport Police Station while the rescued animals were handed over to the Wildlife Conservation Office.

The Asian small-clawed otter is native to South and Southeast Asia and is the smallest otter species in the world. It is listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Prairie dogs are burrowing rodents native to North American grasslands. Two of the five prairie dog species are endangered.

Thailand is a major transit hub for the illegal wildlife trade, with smugglers often transporting live animals to nearby China.

The arrest comes just two months after a woman successfully smuggled an otter, rat and other animals through the same airport on October 4.

The creatures escaped mid-air causing screams from passengers onboard an Airbus A320 operated by Vietnamese carrier Viet Jet
flying from Bangkok to Taiwan.

Shockingly, a box of 28 live turtles was also found when police searched the plane upon landing in Taipei following the three-hour and 45-minute low-cost flight.

Bungling airport chiefs later admitted that security staff noticed live animals in the passenger's hand luggage but waved through the bags on the conveyor belt. They later suspended the employee involved and given other workers strict guidance on what to check for.