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Banksy unveils seventh animal-themed work in a week in London

The artist appears to have used translucent spray paint on the glass windows
The artist appears to have used translucent spray paint on the glass windows

Banksy has confirmed he is behind a new swimming fish artwork which has appeared on a police sentry box in the City of London.

It marks the seventh animal-themed piece the elusive street artist has claimed this week by posting a photo of the artworks to his Instagram at 1pm.

The artist appears to have used translucent spray paint on the glass windows to create the design, turning the sentry box into what looks like a giant fish tank.

The artwork differs from Banksy's previous dark silhouette images of a goat, elephants, monkeys, a wolf, pelicans and a cat which have popped up in various locations across London since Monday.

After it appeared, two City of London police officers arrived to examine the design before taking pictures from the outside of the police box.

Police said they are liaising with the City of London Corporation who own the police box

One officer said they were asked to check out the artwork after it was picked up on CCTV cameras.

In a statement, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Spooner for the City of London Police said: "We are aware of criminal damage to a City of London Police box in Ludgate Hill.

"We are liaising with the City of London Corporation who own the police box."

Yesterday, the artist's sixth piece - a stretching cat on an empty, distressed advertising billboard - was removed from its location in northwest London hours after it was revealed.

Crowds booed as the piece in Cricklewood was dismantled by three men who said they were "hired" by a "contracting company" to take down the billboard for safety reasons.

A contractor said they were going to take the board down on Monday and replace it, but the removal had been brought forward in case someone "rips it down and leaves it unsafe".

An officer at the scene said the owner of the billboard has told police he will donate it to an art gallery.

The cat design was the second piece to be removed during the week after a painting of a howling wolf on a satellite dish was taken off the roof of a shop in Peckham, south London, less than an hour after it was unveiled.

The howling wolf was painted on a satellite dish in Peckham

It was removed by three men, according to a witness, who said hat he filmed them, which led to one of the men throwing his phone on a roof.

A spokesman for Banksy said that the artist is neither connected to nor endorses the theft of the wolf design and that they have "no knowledge as to the dish's current whereabouts".

The first piece of graffiti in Banksy's new animal-themed series, which was announced on Monday, is near Kew Bridge in south-west London and shows a goat with rocks falling down below it, just above where a CCTV camera is pointed.

On Tuesday, the artist added silhouettes of two elephants with their trunks stretched towards each other on the side of a building in the Chelsea area of west London.

This was followed by three monkeys looking as though they were swinging underneath a bridge over Brick Lane, near a vintage clothing shop in the popular east London market street, not far from Shoreditch High Street.

The fifth design, of pelicans pinching fish from a London chip shop sign in Walthamstow, east London, was revealed on Friday.