If Chris Walton ever started biting her nails, she'd probably wear her teeth out: the Las Vegas resident has been declared to be the woman with the longest nails in the world.

The professional singer with a combined total of nearly six metres of nails celebrated in New York after being named in the newly released 2012 edition of the Guinness Book of Records.

Arriving by black stretch limousine, Walton, a flamboyant 45-year-old grandmother with a huge bottle-blonde hairdo, posed for photographs on the steps of the ornate main New York Public Library.

The claws on the famous stone lions flanking the library steps had nothing on her bizarre appendages.