The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness

On the first Wednesday after Kali’s death, Montgomery visits the aquarium as usual and meets Bill at Octavia’s tank. They hug “long and hard” (180) but don’t speak of Kali right away. They talk about almost every other animal in the vicinity until Wilson appears, bearing Kali’s necropsy report. She was healthy in every way when she died. They speculate why she didn’t just crawl back into another tank of water once she became affected by the open air; there was one in the room and her suckers surely could have detected it. It may have been that the mat in front of her tank, treated with a chemical disinfectant to prevent visitors from transmitting disease to her tank, proved toxic to the sensitive mucous on her skin.

Shortly after New Year’s, the octopus Bill ordered to replace Kali arrives at the airport, and Montgomery goes with aquarium staff to pick it up. This one is also a female, and has lost part of an arm, probably in a fight with a predator. Bill names her Karma because her arrival was fated after Kali died. She’s slightly larger than Kali was when she first arrived, and is probably about nine or 10 months old.