Do insects feel pain?

[Phasmid]

I came across a few insects that I'd never seen before. They just seem to have appeared out of nowhere. I captured on in a container and put it in the fridge to put it into stasis. After about 20 minutes I took it into the garden and took some pictures to see if I could get it identified online. It soon warmed up and began to move about again.

My question is, can insects feel pain? I'm quite an emotional person. I tend to feel a lot of empathy even for insects. I sympathised with the insect. I'd taken it from where it was content, put it into a prison, cooled it until it had no choice but to sleep and then put it in an environment it was unfamiliar with.

I don't feel guilty about it, this isn't a, "How could I have done such a thing!" thread. I know the insect's fine and it's either "getting jiggy wid it" or in the stomach of a bird right now. But I was wondering how much... hmmm... how aware insects are.

I'll upload one of my pictures in a sec.

 

[Phasmid]

 

[Phasmid]

I found out what the insect is... uhhh... well... if you're as imature as me in regards to humour, I think you'll get a kick out of this.

Cockchafer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[lunamoth]

Cool bug Phasmid...thanks for posting the picture!

From the wiki article:
Cockchafer fly... Your father is at war Your mother is in Pomerania Pomerania is all aflame Cockchafer fly!



From when I was little I remember a similar 'rhyme':

Ladybug Ladybug fly away home,
Your house is on fire and your children will burn.

Weird, I know, but I bet it somehow came from the cockchafer rhyme.

 

[Phasmid]

Indeed... it's strange, I've never seen one before and I've lived here my entire life. The article talks about how they mature underground and it can take years. Interesting how at the end they think it might be linked to global warming and the decreased use of pesticides.

I wonder what kind of bugs I'll find a few years from now. It's a shame I haven't seen the other one, which was blue. It looked like a scarab beetle.

 

[3.14]

it prob feels pain at its long phallus shaped ligaments

 

[Valjean]

Insects can obviously feel and respond to noxious stimuli, but how they experience them subjectively is anyone's guess.

And that insect is obviously a beetle, not a bug.

 

[michel]

I honestly don't know if they feel pain or not, but, to me, they have as much right to be here as I do, and I respect their place here on earth.

 

[Phasmid]

And that insect is obviously a beetle, not a bug.

I thought bug was just a common word for insect?

 

[Valjean]

Technically a bug is an insect in the order Hemiptera or Heteroptera -- the true bugs.
Beetles are insects in Coleoptera, like the beastie pictured.

 

[Valjean]

I honestly don't know if they feel pain or not, but, to me, they have as much right to be here as I do, and I respect their place here on earth.

Michel! You're back!

We've all missed -- and been worried about you.

Is everything all right?

 

[michel]

Michel! You're back!

We've all missed -- and been worried about you.

Is everything all right?

Not very good, old friend; I'll post an update........

 

[kadzbiz]

I doubt that insects feel pain, but they certainly react to different stimuli as Seyorni has said because of course they are trying to preserve themselves just like any other creature. I totally respect all creatures (sorry, except flies and mosquitos) and always flip a beetle the right way up if it is on its back, save bees from drowing and put spiders I find inside the house back outside. That's a great bug Phasmid.

 

[lilithu]

My question is, can insects feel pain?

They have pain receptors and respond to noxious stimuli. Of course they feel pain.

 

[kadzbiz]

This might help.

 

[Phasmid]

This might help.

Interesting, thank you. I liked the finishing paragraph:

"We consider that the experimental biologist would be

advized to follow, whenever feasible, Wigglesworth's
recommendation that insects have their nervous systems
inactivated prior to traumatizing manipulation.
This procedure not only facilitates handling, but also
guards against the remaining possibility of pain infliction
and, equally important, helps to preserve in the
experimenter an appropriately respectful attitude
towards living organisms whose physiology, though
different, and perhaps simpler than our own, is as yet​

far from completely understood."

What nice people.

 

[whereismynotecard]

My sister and I once had Japanese beetles when we were little, and we poured candle wax on them, and they walked through it, and then their movements became slower and slower, until they stopped all together, because the wax had hardened.

We were such strange children...

Here's a fun story:

We found a dead snake in our drive way, so we built a coffin out of wood for it, and burried it. Some time later we dug it up. Before we had burried it, we had put it's body in the shape of a swirl. When we dug it up, it looked the same shape, only it looked like mud. And we poked it with a stick, and there were no bone or anything. We stirred up his muddy body, and it was just like he was a mud snake...

Also when our fish died, like goldfish, we would put them in plastic see-through bottles, and burry them with part of the bottle above ground so we could see them still...

So there. That's something you probably didn't know about me.

 

[Phasmid]

:areyoucra

 

[whereismynotecard]

Oh, I thought of another one...

About 9 years ago there were cicatas, which are like locusts, if you don't know, and they were eating our little trees. My mom read somewhere that if you use tape and wrap it around the tree, then the cicatas cannot eat them, and as the trees grow, the tape would decompose and fall off...

So to save our trees, my sister and I were helping my mom tape up the trees, and we taped over the cicatas, leaving them in a tomb of tape.

 

[kadzbiz]

...So there. That's something you probably didn't know about me.

Not sure that it really ingraciates me to you.

..About 9 years ago there were cicatas, which are like locusts, if you don't know, ...

Are you talking about cicadas? I can't find anything on cicatas except that it might be a spelling mistake. Cicadas are nothing like locusts. Cicadas can spend up to 17 years underground before emerging in the summer to sing to their heart's content trying to find a mate. The noise that they cumulatively create is an incredible, but pleasing sound that fills the summer evenings. Their shells they discard once they leave the ground are often found part way up gum tree. Kids often hook these shells on their tops for decorating. Cicadas are beautiful creatures. It's a pity you treated them like that.