The five tiger teeth seized from a flat in Park Circus on Wednesday had been extracted from an young adult tiger, an officer of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) said.

Tigers aged two to five years are considered young adults, a forest department official said. The animals generally become independent from their mothers and try to establish their own territories when they are around two years old.

The DRI will get in touch with forest department officials to find out how long ago the tiger may have been killed and its teeth extracted, an officer said.

Preliminary examination of the teeth has revealed that the tiger was possibly killed a few months ago. Tigers are protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and it is illegal to kill them and trade in their parts.

The age of tigers can be determined by the size and colour of the their teeth, a senior forest department official said. As tigers grow older, their teeth tend to become yellowish or discoloured from a lifetime of hunting, the officer said.

“Tiger’s teeth get discoloured and in some cases show signs of erosion once they start getting old. Canines of older animals often become blunt,” the officer said.

The seized teeth were white and their sizes ranged from 6.4cm to 7.6cm, indicating they belonged to a young adult. At least two of the seized teeth are upper canines while the rest are incisors, the DRI officer said.

A forest department official said it was not clear if the tiger had been poached in an Indian forest or abroad. Tiger teeth are in great demand in Chinese cities such as Guangzhou and Shanghai, the officer said.

“Each tooth sells for $2,000-25,000 depending on their size and quality,” the officer said.

Two ivory tusks weighing around 4.27kg each and 29 pieces of chopped tusks were also seized from the Park Circus flat and Karaya, an officer of the agency said.

The value of the seized wildlife parts is estimated to be around Rs 1.15 crore in the illegal market, the official said.

Mohammed Habibullah, who was arrested along with his wife Muslima Begum, allegedly ran international smuggling ring that dealt exclusively in wildlife parts.

Habibullah had allegedly been active in Siliguri and Guwahati from where he would route his consignments to Calcutta and from here to China and other southeast countries.

The couple’s son Mohammed Arman, 23, said he knew his father ran an export business but had no clue that he was smuggling and trading in wildlife parts.

Joydip Kundu, the founder of Society for Heritage & Ecological Research (SHER), said it was worrying as Calcutta was increasingly being used as a transit point by wildlife smugglers.