TIL that Tommaso, an Italian cat about 10 years old, is the richest cat in the world. His mistress, Mrs. Maria Assunta, widowed and childless at the time she adopted Tommaso, decided that he would be the heir of all her fortune.
About 13 million dollars!
Well, Tommaso accompanied her the last and most lonely years of her life, many would see more than justified that she leave all his money to him but ... there is always a but. Laws in Italy do not allow money to be passed on from people to animals directly. Then Mrs. Maria Assunta decided to leave the money to the cat through his nurse Stefania (the full name has never been made public by what it seems). The nurse admitted that she never realized that her patient had so much money. So I guess the surprise was quite nice.
So finally the cat Tommaso managed to obtain the money that his owner left him. And despite being the richest cat in the world, it is only the third richest animal in the world. The second is Kalu, the chimpanzee whose owner left him 80 million dollars and the first is a German Shepherd dog named Gunther who received as an inheritance nothing more and nothing less than ...
372 million dollars !!!
Personally, I do not agree that these large sums of money are left to animals that will never appreciate them. Money has value only to humans (unfortunately we love it too much) and can always be used in a good cause. Of course, it is always the owners' idea to try to assure them a good life when they are gone but ...
372 million dollars !!!???
I do not think Gunther realizes how lucky he is :-P
What do you think? Do you agree with the idea of leaving millionaire sums of money to animals in inheritance?