A frantic effort has been underway to find and identify the species and size of a shark after it claimed the life of Mercury Psillakis , 57, in a morning surf at Long Reef Beach.

Psillakis, suffered fatal injuries in the attack on Saturday. In a final “heroic” act, he steered his friends to safety before being mauled by the shark at Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever