Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies

by Caitlin Doughty

In 2016, a zoo in the Gaza Strip had to be abandoned due to war and the Israeli blockade. As the animals died one by one, they mummified in the dry, hot air. Pictures from inside the ghost zoo show eerily preserved lions, tigers, hyenas, monkeys, and crocodiles.

Hundreds of years ago, across Europe, people afraid of witchcraft would seal cats inside the walls of their homes, believing they would ward off supernatural threats. Builders and contractors have been finding random cats in European walls for years.

Notably, there was a dog named Stuckie found in Georgia in the 1980s. Stuckie was likely a hunting dog that ran up the inside of a hollow tree after a squirrel. As Stuckie climbed, the trunk became narrower and (you see where this is going) Stuckie got stuck. Loggers found his mummified body in the tree years later, teeth bared, eye sockets empty, toenails still intact. They could see all of Stuckie’s bones showing through his thin mummified skin and fur. Normally he would have decomposed quickly in the Georgia woods, but since no creatures could get access to eat him, and the tree bark and tannins sucked moisture from his skin, Stuckie became immortal.

Ahh.. I’ve seen Stuckie

Here is a short, but awesome, list of things that have been found preserved in amber: a roughly 20-million-year-old male scorpion dug up by a farmer in Mexico, a roughly 75-million-year-old set of dinosaur feathers found in Canada, a roughly 17-million-year-old group of anole lizards found in the Dominican Republic, and a roughly 100-million-year-old insect (now extinct) with a triangular head that could turn around 180 degrees—something no modern insect is able to do. There’s even a chunk of amber that holds a roughly 100-million-year-old spider paused in mid-attack on a wasp.

It takes just a little over an hour for all the organic material in the human body to disintegrate and vaporize.

It’s basically impossible to tell Grandma’s bones from neighbor Doug’s bones just by looking at them, which is why cremation was long considered the best way to cover up a crime. (Nowadays, if there is any foul play suspected in a death, cremation can’t take place until a full investigation is completed.)

Cremations for very heavy people can take longer, sometimes over two hours longer. That gives the fat enough time to burn away. But at the end of the process, you can’t tell who went in the machine a 450-pound person and who went in a 110-pound person. The flames are the great equalizer.

It’s more height than weight that determines how much ash is in that doves-and-roses urn. Women tend to be shorter—less bone—so their ashes usually weigh around four pounds. Men tend to be taller, and have ashes that weigh around six pounds.

You might poop when you die. Fun, right? I enjoy pooping in my day-to-day life, so it’s comforting to think this activity will continue after my death. My apologies and thanks to the nurse or mortician who will deal with the cleanup.

Lol she sounds like me

Mid-level trick: an A/V plug. (A/V doesn’t stand for audio/visual. It’s, um, more graphic than that. I’ll let you take that journey of discovery on your own.)

The plug is a clear plastic contraption that looks part wine corkscrew, part plastic stopper for a sink or tub drain. Master-level trick: packing the anal canal with cotton and sewing the anus closed. My personal opinion is that this method is a little much, and we should let our corpses poo in peace.

Three and a half feet is the standard at natural burial grounds across the United States, and there have been zero reports of animals digging up graves.

Because the truth is, if you live in a charming prewar bungalow or a grand Victorian mansion, it’s possible you’re watching TV and eating popcorn where somebody breathed their last breath. And nobody has to tell you about it.

Generally speaking, if someone died a “peaceful death” in a home (meaning it wasn’t part of an ax murderer’s chopping spree), the seller doesn’t have to tell the buyer. The same goes for accidental deaths (say, falling off a ladder) and suicides. And no place in the United States requires sellers to disclose deaths related to HIV or AIDS.

In some cases, the seller will be advised not to reveal that a death has occurred, as it could cause unnecessary stigmatization of the property. No seller wants the buyer’s mind reeling off into visions of gory crime scenes, torrents of blood like the elevator in The Shining, or you know, ghosts.

Death has happened in many homes, more homes than you probably realize. Perhaps in the very house in which you’re reading this book. Remember, people mostly used to die in their own homes, not at hospitals or nursing homes, so if your house has been around for one hundre...

It’s worth noting that in some U.S. states, Georgia for example, a landlord only has to tell you about a recent death if you ask. But if you do ask, they are required to answer truthfully. Sort of like how a vampire can only come into your house if you invite them in. The takeaway from Jessica’s story is, if you are worried about recent deaths in your potential new home, you should ask.

In Oregon, it doesn’t matter when or how someone died; nobody has to tell you anything. Brutal, violent deaths included. Murder, suicide, peaceful death—it’s all the same in the Beaver State.

For your enjoyment, here’s a fun sample of the death tests: Shoving needles under the toenails, or into the heart or stomach. Slicing the feet with knives or burning them with red-hot pokers. Smoke enemas for drowning victims—someone would literally “blow smoke up your ass” to see if it would warm you up and make you breathe. Burning the hand or chopping off a finger. And, my personal favorite: Writing “I am really dead” in invisible ink (made from acetate of lead) on a piece of paper, then putting the paper over the corpse-in-question’s face. According to the inventor of this method, if the body was putrefying, sulfur dioxide would be emitted, thus revealing the message. Unfortunately, sulfur dioxide can also be emitted by living people, like those with decaying teeth. So, it’s possible there were a few false positives.

In 1937—true, 1937 is not quite Ye Olden Times, but at least it’s way before you were born—Angelo Hays of France was in a motorcycle accident. When doctors couldn’t find his pulse, he was pronounced dead. He was buried quickly and his own parents were not allowed to see his disfigured body. Angelo would have remained buried if it wasn’t for the life insurance company’s suspicions of foul play. Two days after Angelo was buried, he was exhumed for an investigation. Upon inspecting the “corpse,” examiners found that it was still warm, and that Angelo was alive. The theory is that Angelo had been in a very deep coma which slowed his breathing way, way down. It was that slow breathing that allowed him to stay alive while buried.*

No. We now have a whole battery of scientific tests to confirm that someone is not just in a coma, but really, truly brain-dead. These tests include but are not limited to: Seeing if your pupils are reactive. When a bright light is shined into them, do they contract? Brain-dead people’s eyes don’t do anything. Dragging a cotton swab over your eyeball. If you blink, you’re alive! Testing your gag reflex. Your breathing tube might be moved in and out of your throat, to see if you gag. Dead people don’t gag. Injecting ice water into your ear canal. If doctors do this to you and your eyes don’t flick quickly from side to side, it’s not looking good. Checking for spontaneous respiration. If you are removed from a ventilator, CO2 builds up in your system, essentially suffocating you. When blood CO2 levels reach 55 mm Hg, a living brain will usually tell the body to spontaneously breathe. If that doesn’t happen, your brain stem is dead. An EEG, or electroencephalogram, which is an all-or-nothing test. Either there is electrical activity in your brain or there isn’t. Dead brains have zero electrical activity. A CBF, or cerebral blood flow study. A radioactive isotope is injected into your bloodstream. After a period of time, a radioactive counter is held over your head to see if blood is flowing to your brain. If there is blood flow to the brain, the brain cannot be called dead. Administering atropine IV. A living patient’s heart rate will accelerate, but a brain-dead patient’s ...

If you’re buried alive and breathing normally, you’re likely to die from suffocation. A person can live on the air in a coffin for a little over five hours, tops. If you start hyperventilating, panicked that you’ve been buried alive, the oxygen will likely run out sooner.

Aquamation uses water and potassium hydroxide to dissolve the dead body down to its skeleton. The aquamation process is better for the environment and doesn’t use natural gas, a valuable resource.