This is the moment a 'Frankenstein' fish comes back from the dead as it jumps out of the frying pan.

Footage shows the fish attempting to leap from a sizzling skillet as it is apparently cooked alive on a kitchen hob in China on January 25. A woman was preparing a Spring Festival dish of carp.

Although the creature has a slit along its abdomen and appears to have been gutted, as soon as it hits the frying pan, it thrashes around in apparent agony.

The clip shows it flying out of the cookware and making the skillet slide off the gas burner when it lands back in. The cook laughs and screams hysterically before the video ends.

Experts say the Frankenstein fish was dead, but because there was still residual nerve activity in its body, it was triggered by the pan's heat.

One biological chemistry expert explained: 'Most of the tissue is actually still alive.

'Cell metabolites are nearly intact, membrane voltages or potentials that exist in nerve cells are probably still close to intact.

'Even though the brain function is missing, the tissues will still respond to stimuli.'