British police have called off a search for a lion reportedly on the loose in the south-east of England.

Firearms officers and police helicopters spent almost 24 hours searching the countryside near Clacton-on-Sea after residents claimed to have seen a lion near Earls Hall Drive in St. Osyth on Sunday night.

But after search teams had found no evidence of the big cat by Monday afternoon, the force decided to stop looking.

The sighting has prompted a media frenzy in Britain, with the Daily Mail tabloid splashing a picture of a snarling lion across its front page and camera crews racing to the historic village, which is built around medieval priory only a couple of miles from England's south coast.

Last year, police in northern England scrambled a helicopter and passengers were stopped from leaving a train after a motorist reported seeing a lion (a hunt turned up nothing). During the riots that hit London in 2011, there were rumours — quickly disproven — that a tiger was on the loose in the capital after escaping from the city zoo.

In 2007, the British media went wild over a man who claimed to have photographed a great white shark off the coast of Cornwall, in southwestern England. He later admitted that the pictures were actually taken while on vacation in South Africa, adding that he could not believe anyone had been foolish enough to take the hoax seriously.