Smokey has been found alive and well, despite not being fed or subjected to sunlight for two years. The goldfish was abandoned when his owners' house in Harwich, Essex was destroyed in a fire back in December 2011.

The fish was left under a plastic sheet in a pond and was only rediscovered this week when builders started making efforts to rebuild the house. There was no immediate indication of how Smokey was supplied with air. However, he appears to have suffered no ill-effects from the lengthy period of isolation.

There's some mystery about how exactly Smokey survived his ordeal, with scientists suggesting Smokey might have survived using proteins and fats stored in his body. The survival chances were likely increased by the cooler conditions under the sheet.

Talking to BBC, biologist Matthew Gage points out "the other possibility is Smokey was simply surviving by eating invertebrates that naturally colonise any garden pond such as worms, insects, and small snails... Smokey's story exemplifies the remarkable adaptations fish have in their toolbox".