Do Insects Feel Pain?
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Do Insects Feel Pain? Do insects feel pain? Many of us probably ask ourselves this question. We swat mosquitoes, step on ants, and spray poison on cockroaches, assuming, or perhaps hoping, that they can’t – but can they? As someone who studies the physiology behind insect behaviour, I’ve wondered about it myself. Those thoughts motivated me to examine the question from the perspective of evolution, neurobiology and robotics. To find out whether insects feel pain, we first need to agree on what pain is. Pain is a personal subjective experience that includes negative emotions. Pain is different from nociception, which is the ability to respond to damaging stimuli. All organisms have nociception. Even bacteria can move away from harmful environments such as high pH. But not all animals feel pain. The question, then, is do insects have subjective experiences such as emotions and the ability to feel pain? We’ve probably al...