A clock that eats time

The beast—with its long needle teeth and barbed tail— rocks back and forth, ultimately inserting its talons in notches at the top of the clock to move it forward. Halfway through the minute the grasshopper's jaws begin to open, snapping shut at 59 seconds.

"Time is gone, he's eaten it," said Taylor

Dubbed the strangest clock in the world, it features a giant grasshopper and has 60 slits cut into its face which light up to show the time.

Its creator John Taylor said he "wanted to make timekeeping interesting".

Dr Taylor is an inventor and horologist - one who studies the measurement of time - and was a student at Corpus Christi in the 1950s.

The grasshopper or "chronophage", meaning "time eater", advances around the 4ft-wide face, each step marking a second.

Its movement triggers blue flashing lights which travel across the face eventually stopping at the correct hour and minute.

But the clock is only accurate once every five minutes - the rest of the time the lights are simply for decoration.