NAIROBI – Two Belgian youths, caught with 5,000 ants in Kenya, faced a fine of $7,700 or the alternative of a 12-month jail term—the harshest punishment for their crime—due to breaking wildlife protection laws.

Officials discovered the ants in the possession of the teenagers, noting the insects were intended for sale in European and Asian markets, highlighting a rising trend in trafficking less popular wildlife species.

Belgian citizens Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, both aged 19, were apprehended on April 5 at a guesthouse with the 5,000 ants and were formally charged on April 15.

Magistrate Njeri Thuku, sitting at the court in Kenya’s main airport on Wednesday, said in her ruling that despite the teenagers telling the court they were naïve and collecting the ants as a hobby, the particular species of ants they collected is valuable and they had thousands of them — not just a few.

The Kenya Wildlife Service had said the teenagers were involved in trafficking the ants to markets in Europe and Asia, and that the species included messor cephalotes, a distinctive, large and red-colored harvester ant native to East Africa.

The illegal export of the ants “not only undermines Kenya’s sovereign rights over its biodiversity but also deprives local communities and research institutions of potential ecological and economic benefits,” KWS said in a statement.