Do animals feel?

[Doctor Fate]

Physical pain, and emotions.

I'm not 100% sure, I but I think virtually all animals can feel physical pain. After all, the ability to feel pain is very critically important to survival, and many animals would not last very long without it. It's rather obvious that more evolved animals can, since our cats and dogs will very clearly express their pain when they're getting needles at the vet. Other animals, like insects and simple sea creatures, though, I'm not sure of. What do you think? Does anyone know anything about that?

Also, do you think animals have thoughts, feelings and emotions like we do? I personally feel that they do. I think that it's obvious that more evolved vertebrate animals, like our companion cats and dogs, experience feelings of happiness, and anger, and sadness, and fear, and affection, like we do.

Less evolved animals like smaller invertebrates I can't be certain about. Can you have thoughts and emotions with a brain smaller than a pencil eraser? Do you think that lowly insects have feelings?

[INFERNO]

I'm not 100% sure, I but I think virtually all animals can feel physical pain. After all, the ability to feel pain is very critically important to survival, and many animals would not last very long without it. It's rather obvious that more evolved animals can, since our cats and dogs will very clearly express their pain when they're getting needles at the vet. Other animals, like insects and simple sea creatures, though, I'm not sure of. What do you think? Does anyone know anything about that?

I do believe they feel physical pain for the same reasons we do: the physiology and sensory processing that allow for it.


Also, do you think animals have thoughts, feelings and emotions like we do? I personally feel that they do. I think that it's obvious that more evolved vertebrate animals, like our companion cats and dogs, experience feelings of happiness, and anger, and sadness, and fear, and affection, like we do.

Less evolved animals like smaller invertebrates I can't be certain about. Can you have thoughts and emotions with a brain smaller than a pencil eraser? Do you think that lowly insects have feelings?

I can tell you that invertebrates to have thought. One of the third-year biology courses I'm doing involves dealing with animal behavior from a biological view and insects are used so, so often as research specimens. In things such as avoidance-response mechanisms, such as for toad vs. cockroaches, there is evidence of the sensory mechanisms involved and evidence of how cockroaches gauge the predator toad. They can hop away faster than the toad except for the toad's tongue. The obvious answer would be to hop away whenever they see or sense a toad, however, there's a cost: hopping away means exposing yourself from your hiding to the open for other predators to see you. LINK 1 (http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/20/10/3814)

LINK 2 (http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.en.17.010172.000355)

[Ripplemagne]

Physical pain, I can't speak for every animal, but I'll give an example of insectoid pain. I have fire bellied toads. They eat live prey and will not go after anything that doesn't move. Normally, I feed them crickets, but one day, the pet store was out and I had to try superworms (thinking they were earthworms).

When I got home to see that they were not earthworms, I did research into if my frogs could eat these. With my luck, they couldn't. The shell of the superworms were too durable to be digested. However, I deduced that splitting the worm in half would allow for digestion of the innards and compaction of the shell.

However, superworms aren't like earthworms. They bleed out and can't survive long when their innards are exposed. But I could hand feed them to the frogs if I motioned the bits in a proper way.

However, when making the dissection of the worm, it tensed up when it felt my grip on its base. And after, squirmed, twitched and flailed when I initially cut it in half. In fact, it seemed to be in so much pain, that I tried to find a quick way of killing it (to no avail despite my better effort to crush the head before doing it, look up the anatomy of it, et cetera) to spare it the pain before its death.

My best efforts went into trying to find a humane way of killing it, but it didn't really work. Case and point: the superworm felt itself being cut in half.

such as for toad vs. cockroaches, there is evidence of the sensory mechanisms involved and evidence of how cockroaches gauge the predator toad. They can hop away faster than the toad except for the toad's tongue. The obvious answer would be to hop away whenever they see or sense a toad, however, there's a cost: hopping away means exposing yourself from your hiding to the open for other predators to see you.

I don't think it has to do with seeing the predator, but as the link attests, wind stimuli. My frogs, for example, have disc-shaped tongues and can't extend them from their mouths. Their attacks of their prey involves pouncing and engorging. Much like a lizard.

I've seen the crickets go right up and stand right on top of the frogs and not budge despite the frog advancing. However, I've noticed that if something bumps into the tank while they're into it or when I lift the cricket keeper or blow onto them, the crickets scatter.

I believe crickets are more sensory than observant, which explains why they're complete morons. Another example I can give is when a cricket falls into the pool of the tank, tey will swim off into the glass. Despite not moving, they will continue to swim forward until they drown to death. This isn't all that common of an occurrence, but it happens.

I believe, for insects, feelings is one of their major senses and supercedes the others. Though, from what I understand, ants communicate with each other through scent; so much so that they can leave a scent that tells the other ants exactly what behavior to make.

[BeautifulDisaster]

Yes.
I think they do.

I also think animals should be treated like humans are.

After all, we are all animals anyway, just different types.

[JackOfClubs]

I believe that all animals feel physical pain, but only domesticated animals, such as dogs, feel emotional pain. I can practically feel my dog's heart hit the floor when I leave him at home when I go to school or a meet. I also see him get happier when I return home and go over to pet him.

[Giles]

Short answer... Yes I think all animals feel emotional and Physical pain.

[INFERNO]

I've seen the crickets go right up and stand right on top of the frogs and not budge despite the frog advancing. However, I've noticed that if something bumps into the tank while they're into it or when I lift the cricket keeper or blow onto them, the crickets scatter.

They have wind receptors along their body and one of the problems with this is they are stimulated when the cricket itself moves. So, to overcome reacting to every single stimuli, they have a threshold to meet that's based partly on the velocity but more on the acceleration of the wind. They're likely to be able to sense the gentle stimuli but aren't reacting to them by jumping away because doing so puts them into harms way. There would also be other receptors, such as for the taps on the tank either through pressure or acoustic.


I believe crickets are more sensory than observant, which explains why they're complete morons. Another example I can give is when a cricket falls into the pool of the tank, tey will swim off into the glass. Despite not moving, they will continue to swim forward until they drown to death. This isn't all that common of an occurrence, but it happens.

There are specific parasites that affect insects and influence them to jump into the water where the host dies but it could also be a non-infected cricket simply doesn't know what to do when its wings are covered with water. They have sensory receptors for wind and so it may be that the water is stimulating these and so the cricket thinks it's in wind so tries to fly forward instead of going elsewhere.


I believe, for insects, feelings is one of their major senses and supercedes the others. Though, from what I understand, ants communicate with each other through scent; so much so that they can leave a scent that tells the other ants exactly what behavior to make.

Although I'm not an entemologist, insects do incredibly complex behaviors and it's very interesting to study them from a neurological view to their physiology and behavior. They may be the "creepy-crawlies" but they do some incredibly interesting behaviors, things that other organisms, such as a lizard may not be able to do.

[Ripplemagne]

Haha. Insects are, indeed, fascinating. When I first had to handle the crickets, I was like "ew, ew, ew." I got used to it now and it's interesting to see how they behave. I want to start an ant farm because as simple as they are, as you said, they do very complex things.

That's a good point on the water/wind stimuli, but I think such would only be applicable with the male crickets because the female crickets don't have wings. Which explains why sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn't. I'll have to observe the differences between the genders and their reaction to water.

Once I start college, I'm going to be majoring in Biology as well. Hurrah. :P

[L]

i believe that all animals can feel pain and have emotions (including insects). just because an insect is small, i don't think that means it cant feel happy or sad, or scared. and i also believe that insects think. not like you or me, just simple things, like: "theres a leaf. eat it" (obviously not in any language, it would just FEEL that way)

[ltimm]

Everything with a nervous system, in my opinion, feels pain and has emotions. The feline brain and nervous system is almost identical to ours (only smaller). Why do you think animals come up to you and rub on you or roll around? Because they trust you and want attention. Insects, on the other hand, I think, can feel, maybe, simple emotions, like fear or waanting, but that's about it. It seems weird that an inscet can feel hatred towards another insect.

[CuriousDestruction]

my dog knows when i'm sad and i know when he's lonely. you can debate that all you want. i know my dog. he knows me.

[foof1]

All animals have nerves so therefore they have physical pain. They also have emotional pain and here is some example.

When my dog Gracie died my dog Tippie was depressed for weeks. He was really quiet and was not at all as energetic as normal. He just had this extremely sad feeling about him.

When a person is hunting and they come upon a herd of wild pigs and they shoot one, the herd will, instead of running away, attack the shooter. This shows that they value each other and like humans will avenge their loved ones.

They have thoughts just like us but they cannot solve and interpret problems like we can. Life is also much simpler so their minds are not as cluttered.

[Watchfulness]

Animals can display pain and emotions just like people.
But understand that their mental capacity are not the same as humans.