French customs officers have found and seized nine dinosaur teeth during a routine check on lorries transiting through the country from Spain on its way to Italy.

The teeth, probably from Morocco, were found during a routine check along a highway running along France’s Mediterranean coastline near the Italian border.

Using sniffer dogs and opening some parcels at random, inspectors have been known to find cannabis or even cocaine among such truckloads of hundreds of parcels traveling from Spain to Italy.

The apparent fossils in two parcels were spotted and sent to be examined by a prehistory museum in the nearby city of Menton.

On Friday, an expert revealed the teeth had belonged to reptiles from the Late Cretaceous period – 72 to 66 million years ago – in Morocco, authorities said.

One of the teeth identified belonged to a Zarafasaura oceanis, a marine reptile measuring about 3m (10ft) and named in Morocco in 2011.

Three belonged to a Mosasaurus, a large aquatic creature that measured up to 12m.

Five other teeth are believed to have been those of a Dyrosaurus phosphaticus, a distant ancestor of crocodiles.

The lorry driver told officers he had been delivering the parcels to people in the Italian cities of Genoa and Milan, French authorities said.

Officials are working to identify the intended recipients of the packages. Collecting fossils is legal but exporting them often requires a licence.