Poll: Do Mantids Feel Pain?

[idolomantis]

I agree, pain is a warning that something is wrong with your body.

Every creature feels pain in a way.

 

[critterguy]

Their was a set of photos somewhere of a male mantid who had been pretty much beheaded by a female in a mating incident and was cut off right below the raptorial legs. The keeper, curious, offered it an insect..which it promptly seized and began eating.

 

[kakistos]

I think the main debate here is: What is pain? And there are many definitions.

I think we all agree that mantids register some negative stimulus, like having their leg trapped between the lid and it's enclosure. They have to, because they have to react to the stimulus to stay alive.

But would you call that pain?

I would not, in my eyes "pain" is the processing in your brain that something is not right or is harming you, and that you feel pain because of it. That you could do something about it. It does not have to be concious thinking, like words/language, but just the sensory pathway's signals that are interpreted by the brain. Then they feel not right, when given a choice they will avoid the stimulus. So mammals feel pain, because they have the brain and advanced sensory system, and they also have the use for pain because they can remember what caused it and then avoid it. Mantids have a very poor memory compared to vertebrates.

So in my opinion mantids do sense discomfort and react to it (they reaction is similar to a cat etc, like pulling at their trapped leg, but that's just because it is a adequate respons to being trapped), but they do not know or feel it's pain. They also are not altered by hormones or by emotions I think. They just don't need those, because they cannot do anything with it.

Very interesting and good posts in this tread! Especially by Headspace and PhillinYuma in my opinion. We should not anthropomorphise animals. If mantids show the same behavior we do (drinking, pulling at trapped leg), it does not mean they sense en feel the same: it just means it is a good respons to a stimulus.

About the freezing: I do not think they will suffer when frozen. But maybe you should just do with them what you feel like is best, where you feel comfortable with. Because we will never know what they sense or what is better, and chances are it does not make a difference anyway.

 

[Anleoflippy]

Mantis do feel pain...

When my dumb friend press his Malayan dead leaf mantis legs really hard the mantis quickly response and tried to run away...

I do believe mantis feel the pain the same as we do...

 

[Dinora]

I doubt they feel pain the same as we do however they must. If you hurt a mantis it reacts as if in pain but it is obviously different.

Ok, I understand they have an initial reaction to an event that has caused them harm, say an appendage has been pulled out, but once that appendage is gone, and they are existing with a missing leg, are they continuing to feel the pain?

Just thinking of the little guy I lost the other night. He/she he had gotten tangled in a molt, lost part of both front legs and lived for another hour afterwards - did that little guy suffer in pain for an hour? Should I have given it an immediate squishing to end it immediately?

 

[Andredesz]

Ok, I understand they have an initial reaction to an event that has caused them harm, say an appendage has been pulled out, but once that appendage is gone, and they are existing with a missing leg, are they continuing to feel the pain? Just thinking of the little guy I lost the other night. He/she he had gotten tangled in a molt, lost part of both front legs and lived for another hour afterwards - did that little guy suffer in pain for an hour? Should I have given it an immediate squishing to end it immediately?

Hi Dinora,

I started this thread because I had similar concerns. Let me try to paste some quotes from this thread in this reply, the ones that helped me understand this topic. I have bolded the quotes of others, and italicized the points I think are especially helpful.

I think Headspace explained it really well:

Invertebrates have a nervous system that is markedly different from our own. It is decentralized and oriented around each component being able to operate independently of the others, instead of our central nervous system (CNS). When we feel pain, we always feel it in the same place--the somatosensory cortex of our brains. Your emotional reaction is processed inside your limbic system and it is not until the message reaches your frontal lobe do you comprehend "I am in pain." Mantids and other insects do not have such sophisticated hardware (wetware?). Being able to process sensory input and react from it does not equate to feeling pain the same way as humans or for that matter vertebrates in general.

Philinyuma's reply was helpful as well:

You may have noticed that if you burn you finger on the stove, you pull your finger away before you register pain. This is because the signal is mediated through the spinal cord, through something called the "somatic reflex arc".

For this reflex to occur, there must be nerve endings in the skin, which is true of most vertebrates, but in insects and other inverts the epidermis is often replaced by a chitinous exoskeleton that contains no nerve endings and does not register touch.

1) Insects can have an aversive reaction to noxious stimuli. This is not the same as "feeling pain". Some rap music has the same effect on me, and I move away or turn it off. The same is true if I move to the shade on a hot day, but in neither case do I experience "pain" in its usual sense.

2)Pain as we understand it is a survival mechanism for animals that can retain a memory of the stimulus. It helps us to remember to avoid that stimulus again. Inverts don't have a "brain" in the same sense as vertebrates do, and will not remember to avoid the stimulus. The human brain, interestingly, does not register pain; a needle passed through the cerebrum of a conscious patient will not cause pain. "Headaches" are experienced in the scalp.

3) We should be glad that they don't feel pain (at least in Arizona), since our mantises spend their time eating other insects and each other, alive.

And Shorty's reply was insightful too:

Of course they pull on their leg to try to get out of being trapped. Every single living organism on the planet, well multicellular at least, reacts in ways to avoid death. However, this does not mean they feel pain in any way. Like was already stated, massively different nervous systems. Us humans tend to anthropomorphize, or personify things. We look for patterns in everything that relates to us in someway or another without even thinking about it. I mean, when you do tear a leg off of a mantis, do they whither in extreme pain like if we lost a leg? No, they just walk away and go back to their business. And idolomantis, cats are mammals, and having mammalian nervous systems, they probably do feel pain in some sort. Even then, it is probably different than pain as we know it. Basically, mantids do have senses, just not like we know. They're pretty much very complex organic robots, as are all insects.

Salomonis provided us with this link that discusses this issue:

http://www.bugsforthugs.com/2007/06/30/ask...g-or-feel-pain/

Here is a link to a study that discusses the matter as well:

http://dels.nas.edu/ilar_n/ilarjournal/33_...2Question.shtml

Of course everyone's contributions were helpful, but I feel that the quotes above explain the science behind this issue.



Carol

 

[Katnapper]

Nice work, pulling that all together, Carol!

 

[Andredesz]

Nice work, pulling that all together, Carol!

Thanks Nappy! I'm glad I started this thread because now I feel way better about feeding my mantises live insects. Also, my mantids have had so many limb injuries that I found myself suffering for them. Oddly, I'd noticed they didn't seem much bothered by their newly missing appendage, but still I felt bad. It's normal for us to imagine that other living things feel just as we do, that's just how we understand things. I had a teddy bear as a child that I was sure was being teased by my other plush animals for its missing eye. And my daughter, there is nothing she cannot personify. Even her toothbrush has a backstory. Our cat had been married to several different Disney princesses before he passed.

Carol

 

[Katnapper]

Even her toothbrush has a backstory. Our cat had been married to several different Disney princesses before he passed. Carol

Lol... I understand! :lol: My son (age 9) still thinks one of our cats, Magic, is his best buddy because he (Magic) remembers and is grateful that we saved him from the Humane Society and being left in a dumpster.

 

[Dinora]

Thank you so much Carol!

Seeing it all together (and with the italics) did help!

Oh, and my 11 yr old refers to his World of Warcraft, Diablo, Runescape (etc.) in-game characters as "he" - as in "He leveled today!" or "He out dps'ed the rogue in the instance last night" or "I need to play this guy more, he's getting bored because my hunter has been more busy than he has" - LOL

Dinora

 

[patrickfraser]

Bump...