Customs officers in Chengdu City, southwest China's Sichuan Province, have intercepted a package sent from Germany containing over 100 live ants, customs authorities said Saturday.

Each of the black ants, which measure 1.5 to two centimeters long, was shipped in its own test tube filled with some water. Three were identified as ant queens and are about three cm in length. In the tubes of the queen ants, some small ants had hatched from their eggs.

In November 2015, Chengdu Customs also seized more than 1,000 live ants, also sent from Germany.

Big ants are usually kept as pets. Non-native ant species have no natural predator in China, which could endanger the environment.

Import of hazardous species has also been on the rise.

According to the quarantine bureau of Henan Province on Saturday, during the first quarter of 2016, the province seized 707 batches of non-native hazardous plants and animals, which belonged to 68 different species, a growth of 219.9 and 23.6 percent from the same period last year.

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