LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Authorities said on Monday that a pair of lungs had been found on a Los Angeles-area sidewalk and that coroner's investigators were trying to determine if they were from a human or an animal.

The organs were found by an unidentified person on Sunday night in an area just outside the city limits, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sergeant Pauline Panis said.

"It's at the coroner's office right now and they are trying to ascertain if it's human or animal," she said. A coroner's spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

Panis said it was the first time she was aware of a pair of lungs being recovered from the streets of Los Angeles.

"It's getting weirder," she said.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Eric Walsh)