Photo: Keith Micallef

The 'pelvic bone' washed ashore in the bay beneath Torri l-Abjad, limits of Mellieha yesterday afternoon is actually a fish, forensic tests have established.

When it was washed ashore yesterday, the people on the beach at the time assumed it was the remains of an animal or fish and did not give it a second thought.

But interest in the bone was triggered again this morning when a father saw his son playing with it and he contacted the police saying there were human remains on the beach.

The "bone" was dug out and taken for forensic tests which established it was the skeletal remains of a fish.