A GOLDFISH’S disappearing act left his Swindon owners baffled - and not a little amused.

Last seen on New Year’s Day, the inch-long goldfish was gone when Park North woman Tanya l came downstairs to feed fish Dave and his three tank-mates the next morning.

The 36-year-old said she has seen hide nor hair of the pet fish, bought five years ago from Pets at Home.

“He’s just gone – completely vanished,” Tanya told the Adver.

Little Dave’s disappearance threatened to descend into farce as a friend of Tanya’s set up a Facebook page, called Finding Davo, inspired by Disney Pixar hit movie Finding Nemo. Others have tied posters to lampposts around Park North calling for Dave’s safe return to his tank.

“It’s a bit odd,” said child behaviour specialist Tanya, of Dave’s disappearance from his kitchen counter tank. “Our fish tank has a lid on it. I’ve emptied the filter, moved all the stones in the tank. I’ve checked all around the kitchen, checked under the counters.”

She was adamant her two dogs, shih tzu Alfie and Pippin the Yorkshire terrier, were too short to jump on to the metre-high kitchen counter. Had Dave made a leap for freedom, the dogs were unlikely to have gobbled him up and would more likely have taken him to their dog beds as a prize, Tanya added.

Examples of cannibalism among goldfishes is uncommon, but not unheard of. If a goldfish dies, others in an aquarium have been known to nibble their former tank mate, leaving little trace.

Despite searching underneath gravel in the tank, Tanya could still find no sign of Dave.

She even thought her daughters might have removed Dave from the tank: “I went upstairs to the girls’ bedrooms and said, ‘have you got one of the fish? Are you sure you’ve not got him in a bowl of water?’.”

Describing missing Dave as a happy-go-lucky goldfish, Tanya said his friends appeared a little put out at the five-year-old fish’s disappearance. Pointing to one of the remaining three fish, she said: “He looks a bit depressed and keeps at the back of the tank.