This is the bizarre moment when a school of hungry koi seem to have little to carp about as they hurl themselves from the water to gobble up some tasty food.

A student in Jinan, Shandong Province, eastern China, sparked the feeding frenzy when she left the bread she was planning to throw into their pond on the side.

But within seconds, the hungry fish were throwing themselves onto dry land to nab the food before other fish got a sniff of it.

The student’s phone footage shows the koi with their mouths wide open waiting to be fed.

But as the crowd gets larger, some start to jump out of the pond to nibble at the bread before falling back into the water.

The footage was shared on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, getting more than 400,000 likes and 95,000 comments.

One user called ‘51783368266’ commented: “Theoretically, if you keep feeding them like this every day, they should eventually evolve into amphibians.”

Another named ‘Yang Xiaoyang’ wrote: “This is the first time that I’ve seen fish that eat like pigs.”

And user ‘Xiaodong Xiaoxi.’ said: “This is not a group of koi carps, this is a group of koi pigs.”

Koi fish are coloured varieties of the Amur carp (Cyprinus rubrofuscus), often kept in ponds or water gardens for their striking appearance.

The koi vivid colours originate from a breeding programme that began in Niigata, Japan, in the early 19th century.