The coastline of West Wales has experienced what has been described as ‘one of the most exquisite pieces of fish-based engineering’ ever to enter her waters.

At around 2.15pm on Friday, August 18, one of the largest sharks ever to have been spotted off Ceredigion was seen breaching three times just off New Quay.

The shark is estimated to have been between five and six metres in length.

“With a tail as long as its body, this beast was not only huge, but absolutely gorgeous,” said the man who sighted and photographed her, namely Joshua Pedley, who is also known as 'Wildlife Man'.

“We saw it on our one-hour dolphin watching boat trip yesterday (Friday, August 18) and it was a truly remarkable sighting of a truly remarkable animal.

“It breached three times in total, and it was the initial breach that caught my attention. The photograph I managed to get was from one of the following two breaches.”

Joshua, who runs the SeaMôr Dolphin Watching Boat Trips, went on to say that shark sightings in the UK are often 'massively overplayed' by UK media outlets.

"I won’t be specific, but you can probably guess some of the national papers that I am referring to," he said.

"But these Thresher Sharks are completely harmless to humans.

“They feed on fish and squids and use their extremely long tail as a whip to stun if not slice their prey.

"We estimate that this specific individual that we saw was probably between five to six metres long, and on average they max out at about six metres in length.

"I get asked multiple times a day on our boat trips, “Do we get any sharks here? - And the answer is ‘Yes’.

"But these are normally only some of the smaller shark species, like Catsharks. But every now and then you will get lucky and sight a larger shark, because they’re out there.

“This isn’t a cause for panic or hysteria, but it’s a wonderful sign to show how healthy and rich with wildlife our local waters actually are.