Smokey the goldfish–thought to have been killed two years ago following a house fire–survived with no food and was found alive in a pond under a plastic sheet in the United Kingdom after two years.
The goldfish spent 21 months in the pond in Harwich, Essex, reported the BBC. The fire gutted the home in December 2011.
“Smokey was discovered as the work on the house came to an end and the contractors were looking to fill-in the pond,” Barry Eldridge, they building surveyor with Tendring District Council, told the broadcaster.
Smokey, which is 3 inches long, had no problems.
Katya Mira of the RSPCA told the BBC: “Fish require oxygen in the water to breathe so it’s quite a surprise that Smokey has survived so long in a covered-over pond with no obvious source of aeration.”
Owner Jackie Broadley told the Metro that she believed she got all her fish out of the pond.
“When I got the phone call to say there was a surviving fish from the old pond, I thought somebody was winding me up,” she told the paper. “It’s really nice to have Smokey as it was a horrible experience for us to lose our house and have to re-home all our other fish.”
Professor Matthew Gage, with the University of East Anglia, told the Daily Mail that Smokey’s case shows the survival instincts of fish.
“Fish, especially cold water species like goldfish, are able to shut down physiological processes to a minimum and go into hibernation when they need no food,” he said.
