The basking shark’s scientific name, Cetorhinus maximus, roughly translates to “great-nosed sea monster” in Greek. In reality, these placid sharks, found the world over, are totally harmless.

They use more than 5,000 gill rakers to strain 25 kg of plankton from around 1.5 million litres of water per hour which is around the size of a swimming pool Basking sharks are found across the globe.

The children weren’t aware that the juvenile basking shark, which approached St Ives ... sharks for some years in the bay.

The sight of the juvenile basking shark's fin sparked panic in the normally ... He added: "The poor kids who were in the water must have only been 20ft from it. They didn't realise it was harmless ...