WHITEWATER, COLORADO — Feral cats broke into a Colorado body farm to munch on some choice cadavers.
But scientists don't mind – it's all in the name of science!
For the uninitiated, body farms aren't as gruesome as the name implies.
It's simply a facility where scientists observe and record how the body decomposes over time.
So less horror flick and more CSI.
At this farm – Colorado Mesa University's Forensic Investigation Research Station – there were fences both above and below ground as well as infrared cameras.
Newsweek reports that donor bodies were placed three meters apart and checked weekly for decomp.
The cadavers of man and a woman in their 70s had been placed five or six days earlier when a pair of feral cats broke in and started scavenging the bodies.
Like bobcats, their favorite bits were soft tissues in the shoulder and arms. Housecats, when they do munch on cadavers, tend to go for facial tissue.
The felines came by for a snack twice, but stopped coming when the bodies began going into moist decomposition.
Clearly, it doesn't matter whether cats are feral or domesticated – they're still finicky!
Scientists weren't really upset about the break-in – they actually thought it helped them learn how to distinguish cause-of-death injuries from damage inflicted postmortem.
Guess it's a win-win situation for man and cat!