A DEAD shark was found on a man’s lawn around 10 miles away from the sea. 

Wimborne resident Michael Johnson found the headless body of a small-spotted catshark last week. 

About three feet long minus the head, the catshark is believed to have dropped from the sky by a bird that was carrying it. 

Michael said: “I can only guess how it happened, because I live away from the sea a bit inland and clearly it didn’t swim there. 

“My best guess is it got washed up inland with all the flooding lately up the river, and then a bird has come along and picked it up and dropped it in our garden. 

“I saw it outside and went to have a look, and it was clearly a shark, and an app that identifies animals backed that up, it’s a small-spotted catshark.” 

The most common type of shark in the UK, small-spotted catsharks used to be commonly known as the lesser-spotted dogfish. 

According to the Dorset Wildlife Trust, they often wash up dead on the county's beaches after storms – Storm Bert was the most recent. 

Michael added: “I left it there for the rest of the day and the next day it had gone, but we have a family of foxes living around so they must have taken it. 

“I said to my wife: ‘I’m going to tell you something that has never been said before, and nobody will probably say again, but there’s a dead shark on our lawn’. 

“She was incredulous.” 

Dorset Wildlife Trust’s spokesman said: “The small-spotted catshark is a small shark, so named due to the dark spots and blotches covering its skin.  

“All sharks have very rough skin, covered in hard ‘dermal denticles’ - which literally means ‘tiny skin teeth".  

“If rubbed the wrong way, they are very coarse like sandpaper but it provides the shark with an effective chain-mail like protection.” 

They feed on crabs, molluscs and other small fish and when they feel threatened, they curl up into a doughnut shape. 

The trust added: “They are highly common around the UK and live close to the seabed in shallow waters down to 100m deep.  

“They sometimes wash up dead on our beaches after storms, but you're most likely to come across one of their egg cases.  

“Known as mermaid's purses, shark (and ray and skate) egg cases are a good indicator of what species are breeding nearby. The small-spotted catshark has a small eggcase (5-7cm) with curly tendrils at each corner.”