A man was running on a Liverpool beach when he spotted what looked like a sea monster on the shoreline.
The 15-foot creature was found in the early morning of January 5 by Stephen Davies, who had been out on his daily run at New Brighton beach.
He said: “I was running on the beach and thought ‘what’s that?’ because it looked quite big.
“I was talking to a fisherman who said it was a basking shark, which I don’t think are fairly common around here, but it could have been washed in by the tide.
“I have never come across anything like it before.”
Some weren’t convinced it was a shark. Many compared it to a sturgeon, due to the size of its nose, while others thought it was “New Brighton’s Nessie” that had appeared.
Basking sharks are the second largest fish in UK waters, moving slowly and eating zooplankton.
According to the Wildlife Trust, the species is most commonly seen in the summer months, and frequent the west coast of the UK.
The dead shark on New Brighton beach is likely to have been young, with adults measuring up to 40ft and weighing up to six tonnes.
The Trust said: “The basking shark may be huge but we still know very little about this elusive giant.
“Satellite tracking has shown that they can migrate long distances in the winter, with some showing up off the Azores and even Newfoundland.
“However, some fishermen have reported seeing them in midwinter in the UK and they sometimes wash up dead in the winter after storms.”
The carcass was removed from the beach using a forklift truck.
