A crayfish was filmed ripping off its own claw to avoid being cooked alive at a restaurant in China.

The crustacean can be seen perching on to the edge of a pot with one pincer dangling in the boiling soup.

In footage now viewed more than one million times on Facebook, it pulls off the damaged limb using its other claw before scuttling off across the table.

The crayfish was adopted by the diner who was about to eat it and is now being kept in an aquarium.

Other social media users had begged the man, known only as Jiuke, not to eat the animal "seeing how hard he's trying to survive."