Police said two officers recovered the carcass after a member of the public reported a dead animal "the size of a calf with canine teeth" had washed up on a Croyde beach, The Daily Mail reported Thursday.

"It's a good five feet long, and it's got black fur," said one of the officers who responded to the beach. "It certainly looks quite beast-like with those teeth.'

Experts were working to try to identify the animal, police said.

"It almost definitely looks like it could be a beast of Exmoor," the second police officer said. "It's only about five miles away to Exmoor by sea, it could easily have floated down."

The Beast of Exmoor, reputedly a big cat resembling a black panther or puma, was first sighted in the 1970s and gained fame in 1983 when a farmer claimed a large animal had killed 100 of his sheep.