A cat owner in Devon has turned her beloved pet into a black diamond ring to honour her memory.

Sooty, a black cat who died aged 11 without warning from a respiratory problem, has had her ashes compressed and shaped into a jet black diamond.

In order to remember Sooty’s jet black colour, Sue Rogers, sooty’s owner, had the world’s first black diamond made from animal ashes.

LifeGem, an American company who specialise in turning human and animal ashes into diamonds, performed the procedure using a diamond press.

Sooty’s ashes were exposed to temperatures of 3,000 degrees Celsius and a million pounds of pressure for a fortnight, to produce the third-of-a-carat 3mm stone.

"When Sooty died I was shocked because she was only 11-years-old and hadn’t been ill or anything… She was a wonderful cat who never went outside and was a genuine scaredy-cat,” said Sue Rogers, Sooty’s owner (Telegraph.co.uk).

The procedure cost more than £2,000 and only required a small amount of Sooty’s ashes, the rest are still on display in an urn at Sue’s home.