THIS is the eerie moment a dead fish wildly thrashes about while being fried in a pan "like a scene from the Exorcist".

Mr Wen bought the fish fresh from a local market and brought it home to cook for his wife but while he was frying the fish, it started thrashing about the pan.

In the footage, the "zombie fish" is seen moving so much that its tail falls off.

Mr Wen said he was left speechless and had never seen anything like it before, adding that the fish moved around for at least two minutes.

He waited until the fish was completely motionless before serving it to his wife, who is seen tucking in with a pair of chopsticks in a second clip.

According to the news site Baidu, the unusual scene was filmed in the city of Zhengzhou in the Chinese province of Henan last week.

The video was widely shared on TikTok and left users horrified as they tried to figure out what was causing the phenomenon.

One user said: "The fish was indeed dead, but the spine was not removed before going in the pan, which makes the nerves come alive, but the fish was certainly dead.

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"Buying this kind of fish is better because it means it is fresher."

Another said: "I have seen this before. When a seafood restaurant was cooking octopus, the tentacles started moving even though the chef had already cut them into pieces. It must be the same principle."

While the video might look like something out of a horror film, there's a simple explanation for what happened to the fish.

The most common explanation for the phenomenon is that the tissue still temporarily responds to stimuli.

Despite the brain being dead, the muscles contain adenosine triphosphate, the main source of energy for muscle contractions.

It doesn't mean the fish is alive or in any pain.

The phenomenon isn't limited to fish as frog legs can still kick after they've died and chickens can run around with no heads.

Following a similar incident in 2018, a chemistry professor at the University of Virginia told Discovery News: "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."

In 2019, a gutted fish was filmed lunging at a screaming girl, while in 2020, a woman filmed her fish flapping in the oven as it cooked, freaking her out.

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