A DEAD shark that experts say is "extremely rare" has been cut up after it washed up on a Hampshire beach. 

The animal, confirmed as a small tooth sand tiger, was initially found on Friday evening swimming on Lepe beach when it became stuck.

Alisha Openshaw helped pull the shark into deeper waters after finding it struggling but it was found dead on the same beach just hours later.

The body of the "once in a lifetime find" has since been cut up with its head, tail and fin taken away. 

READ MORE: Brave mum of two rescues six foot stricken shark on Hampshire beach

Dan Snow, creative director of the history channel History Hit was one of the people who helped recover what remained of the animal.

He was alerted to the shark being on the beach while he was in London on Saturday afternoon.

He rushed down to the beach at around 11.30pm on Saturday to find the carcass with its head, tail and fins cut off.

Speaking to the Echo, Mr Snow, 44, said: “I got a text (from) a leading biologist saying 'that's not a common shark', and to get that shark off the beach and into a fridge now, it’s a once in a lifetime find.”

"By the time I got down there, the head had been chopped off."

Mr Snow and some other people managed to recover the rest of the body of the shark and stored it in the cold facility.

Mr Snow said: "It's totally legal to chop off the head of the shark if you find it on shore, so they can keep the head and keep the teeth.

"But I'm asking people to let the scientists look at it first".

The remains have now been recovered and stored in a fridge at a farm in Exbury and will be picked up on Tuesday by a team from the Zoological Society of London.

He said: "It's an incredibly rare shark and the experts will now want to find why it was swimming on UK waters, how it got here how long it had been here.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing for them to be found in the UK."