Great story in the paper about a cat-of-death in the USA:

OSCAR the cat makes his grand entrances just as life is about to leave.

A hop onto the bed, a fastidious lick of the paws, then a snuggle beside a nursing home patient with little time left.

“He’s a cat with an uncanny instinct for death,” said David Dosa, assistant professor at the Brown University School of Medicine and a geriatric specialist. “He attends deaths. He’s pretty insistent on it.”

In the two years since Oscar was adopted into the dementia unit of the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Providence, he has maintained close vigil over the deaths of more than 25 patients, according to nursing staff, doctors who treat patients there and an essay written by Dr Dosa, published in yesterday’s New England Journal of Medicine.When death is near, Oscar nearly always appears at the last hour or so. Yet he shows no special interest in patients who are simply in poor shape or even patients who may be dying but who still have a few days.

I am the angel of death

(Do you like the way I surreptitiously managed to sneak in a Friday Napoleon post by disguising it as bizarre news commentary?)

UPDATE: I Can Has Cheezburger? has a lolcat take on the death cat story.