By Michael Evers

Menton (France) - French customs officers have discovered nine large dinosaur teeth during an inspection of an express delivery van at the Italian border.

The officers made the discovery during a check on the highway in Menton in the south of France in parcels that the van was transporting from Spain to Italy .

The consignments were destined for Italian private individuals near Genoa and Milan. The discovery of the dinosaur fossils, which date back millions of years to the Cretaceous period, was a very special find, explained customs.

Import, ownership and transportation documents are required for such goods, which the driver was unable to provide. Further investigations are underway to clarify the identity of the recipients and to decide what to do with the dinosaur teeth.

The expert opinion of a specialist at the Prehistoric Museum in Menton revealed that they are fossilized teeth from dinosaurs that lived in the sea in what is now Morocco.

Specifically, it involved a tooth from a plesiosaurus, three teeth from a mosasaurus and five teeth from a dyrosaurus, an ancestor of today's crocodiles.