Visitor Ritchie Symmonds from Grantham told the Whitby Gazette: "While walking on the beach between Whitby and Sandsend I came across the washed up body of a strange fish.

"I have tried to identify it, but failed miserably.

"The fish was approximately 14 inches from nose to tail tip and six to seven inches from dorsal fin to belly."

Mr Symmonds sent a picture, left, of his mystery find.

Secretary of Whitby Charter Fishermen's Association Jon Whitton believes the fish could have been a Ray's Bream.

He said: "It's almost certainly some kind of sea bream – there are Black Bream and White Bream but they are much rarer in the north although there was quite an invasion of them in 1969 and in the early 1970s.

"The most northern limit for them to breed is in the English Channel."

Sea bream migrate northwards according to water temperature and in Hartlepool in 1967 one weighing 7lbs was caught.

But the record was in Cork in Ireland in 2006 where one was caught that weighed in at a massive 18lbs 5ozs.

They are also caught around Guernsey in the Channel Islands.

The species are also known as brama brama and they feed on a variety of food including crustaceans.

They are greenish-brown in colour with silver reflections and they have yellow fins.

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