Pan­ic swept through Las Cuevas Beach on Sun­day, af­ter beach­go­ers fled the wa­ter be­liev­ing a shark was cir­cling in the shal­lows. How­ev­er, it was lat­er dis­cov­ered that it was a dol­phin.

A video of the in­ci­dent spread rapid­ly across so­cial me­dia, al­so spark­ing ini­tial pub­lic con­cern. It showed bathers scram­bling to shore as a fin was spot­ted cut­ting through the wa­ter close to the beach, trig­ger­ing fear and con­fu­sion among beach­go­ers.

Res­i­dent Akeem De Ver­teuil, who wit­nessed the in­ci­dent, said the ma­rine an­i­mal was part of a group mov­ing off­shore be­fore one ap­peared to be­come sep­a­rat­ed and en­tered shal­low wa­ters.