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A Chinese holidaymaker unwittingly sparked a biosecurity scare at New Zealand's busiest airport after snake fillets were discovered in a package thought to contain tea.

A sealed plastic bag containing the snake meat was packed by the tourist's mother and was 'crawling with insects' when it was opened by a quarantine inspector at Auckland Airport last week.

Government officials said the woman presented the seemingly innocent package upon landing and was not certain that it actually contained tea.

Snake bite: A package containing python fillets sparked a biosecurity scare at Auckland Airport last week

Python fillets, bottom right, are sold at an outdoor market

Brett Hickman, detection technology manager for New Zealand's Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), said: 'It became clear the contents were definitely not tea when our quarantine inspector opened the package and discovered fresh fillets labelled as python.

'The meat could have had diseases damaging to our native reptiles. And contributing to the biosecurity risk, it was crawling with insects.' 

After the unusual discovery the airport raised its biosecurity alarm as a precaution.

MPI did not fine the passenger as she had declared the item.

The holidaymaker declared the package upon landing but did not know that it contained exotic snake meat

Mr Hickman said: 'She did the right thing by alerting us she was carrying food items, and we congratulate her for that.'

MPI gave the confiscated python fillets to the country's Department of Conservation as it may be subject to the Trade in Endangered Species Act.

Mr Hickman said quarantine inspectors regularly intercept 'biosecurity risk items' in misleading packaging.

The Department of Conservation seized the snake meat as it may be subject to an endangered species act

He said: 'A lot of stuff from some countries gets vacuum-packed in whatever packaging a shop happens to have at the time.

'It means our inspectors have to open everything they are not sure about.

'We don't see a lot of snake products like this, although occasionally we find snakes preserved in bottles of wine from places like Thailand and Vietnam.'