Biosecurity staff have discovered a box of animal skulls from South Africa crawling with maggots at the International Mail Centre near Auckland airport.
A dog team detected the skulls, thought to include zebra and wildebeest, which still had flesh on them.
The Primary Industries Ministry says their intended recipient chose to pay to have the skulls treated with formalin and methyl bromide rather than have them destroyed or reshipped to another country.
It is holding the skulls until the Department of Conservation can identify them and make sure there are no species covered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
