Tuesday: At the 1992 American Academy of Forensic Sciences conference in New Orleans, a forensic pathologist stated that individuals living alone sometimes died unexpectedly and unnoticed. He claimed that, in his experience, a pet dog would go for several days before it resorted to eating the owner's body. A pet cat would wait only a day or two. What he didn't mention was that cats are obligate carnivores and, unlike dogs (which are more omnivorous), cats cannot consume other potential foodstuffs that might be lying around the home (fruit, veg, cookies). For a dog, the corpse might be a last resort, but for an obligate carnivore, it may be the first resort.

Like other scavengers, those cats are doing a clean-up job. Without scavengers, we would be knee-deep in rotting flesh. Even when bodies are decently buried, it is being invisibly consumed