S.Dehaani Eating Live Fuzzy

[InvertsandOi]

Cricket vs Mouse? Which life matters more? I wouldn't feel bad or give it much thought for accidentally stepping on a cricket but I would feel bad accidentally stepping on a mouse. Mark me down as a hypocrite. Maybe karma will get me in the next life and I'll come back as a cricket.

I'm actually the opposite, haha. I can't remember the last time I killed an arthropod other than for feeding purposes. I kill rats and mice on my property every chance I get (more often than I'd like) because I don't want them entering my house. I've dealt with rodent infestations before. Grew up with them, actually. It's something I will avoid if I can help it. I don't enjoy killing the rats at all, but I don't feel bad for them either. I just see it as something I have to do.

 

[Chris LXXIX]

I'm actually the opposite, haha. I can't remember the last time I killed an arthropod other than for feeding purposes. I kill rats and mice on my property every chance I get (more often than I'd like) because I don't want them entering my house. I've dealt with rodent infestations before. Grew up with them, actually. It's something I will avoid if I can help it. I don't enjoy killing the rats at all, but I don't feel bad for them either. I just see it as something I have to do.

Well, you can buy cats as an option :-s

My four hunters literally strike down everything that fly (from flies to pidgeons to exotic little parrots from others) and mouse of all size. It's nature

 

[InvertsandOi]

Well, you can buy cats as an option :-s

My four hunters literally strike down everything that fly (from flies to pidgeons to exotic little parrots from others) and mouse of all size. It's nature

Oh trust me, neighborhood cats in my yard is always a welcomed sight.

 

[Nephila Edulis]

I guess we just get desensitised to insects and it's shocking when it happen she to a mouse or lizard

 

[HybridReplicate]

Cricket vs Mouse? Which life matters more? I wouldn't feel bad or give it much thought for accidentally stepping on a cricket but I would feel bad accidentally stepping on a mouse. Mark me down as a hypocrite. Maybe karma will get me in the next life and I'll come back as a cricket.

That still isn't anything to do with one animal being worth more than another. We just find it harder to relate to an animals that is so much smaller than us, and can't really express pain.

By my thinking it's not that one life is worth more than another but as lifeforms increase in complexity so do their responses to stimuli. Providing the same stimulus to different organisms results in different outcomes.

Take for example a dog. They only have the machinery to really pay attention to tone & a handful of words. So long as I'm using a cheerful tone I can say all sorts of stuff to my dog, "You're an ugly monkey! Nobody loves you! You smell like poop, pooper scooper!" & he's wagging his tail & wants to give kisses. However, saying the same thing to a human will get slightly different results because they have the mental machinery to perceive the content.

Same stimulus, different quality of response.

 

[Staehilomyces]

For me, it all boils down to the fact that the end is much quicker for a cricket being fed to a pede than a mouse. The former would die from the venom in seconds, while the latter will be eaten alive before the venom takes full effect.

 

[basin79]

Cricket vs Mouse? Which life matters more? I wouldn't feel bad or give it much thought for accidentally stepping on a cricket but I would feel bad accidentally stepping on a mouse. Mark me down as a hypocrite. Maybe karma will get me in the next life and I'll come back as a cricket.

In essence it's not about something dying. A f/t mouse has to die after all. It's about the actual death. There's a lot wrote about pain in invertebrates. Whether they feel pain, the amount of pain etcetera. However humans are mammals the same as a mouse. And as such imagine just having your finger fanged and ate by a pede. It'd be absolutely terrible. Massively painful.

Now shrink down and imagine the pain of being fanged and having your face eaten whilst alive. Your back. A leg. Whilst pede venom is potent it's not nearly potent enough to kill a mouse quick. That mouse was ALIVE when it started getting eaten.

There's absolutely nothing "natural" about feeding a captive pede a live mouse.

It's abhorrent. Whilst gassing may not be nice I'm damn sure every single one of you would chose it over being eaten alive.

To the OP. The next time you stub your toe, stand on a plug or smack your knuckles. Think on what YOU put that mouse through.

 

[Najakeeper]

Blablablabla, excuses excuses, this and that. Doesn't take away the cruelty aspect.

-A centipede can live a perfectly healthy life on invertebrate prey. If you are worried about variation, you can order a wide variety of different insect prey items.
-The mechanism of feeling "pain" in insects is very different compared to vertebrates. They do not suffer like vertebrate animals do. Multitudes of papers on this, please read.

It boils down to the fact that you wanted to see your centipede kill and eat a baby mouse, fully aware of the pain that your actions will cause to the animal.

 

[Scolopendra Kendrick]

Boooooooooooooo

Don't tell me why I did something.

 

[RTTB]

I'm curious if there are documented reports on what the various 'giant' centipedes feed on in the wild and what percentage of vertebrate prey comprise their diet.

 

[Staehilomyces]

Well in the case of the bat hunting ones, I'd even go so far as to suggest that vertebrates comprise the majority of their diets.

 

[HybridReplicate]

I'm curious if there are documented reports on what the various 'giant' centipedes feed on in the wild and what percentage of vertebrate prey comprise their diet.

I found a couple references to decreased lifespan when feeding vertebrates,

Pinkies and feeder lizards can be offered occasionally, but they are not designed to digest vertebrates as much, so they tend to make them obese and have a shorter life span. [1]

Keep in mind that overfed invertebrates, and especially overfed centipedes, seem to die much sooner than those that are kept "lean and mean". [2]​

The cited source is The Biology of Centipedes, although I do not have access to the book. There are multiple threads here that list overfeeding as a cause of decreased life span, citing faster growth & maturation leading to a quicker death, which is more easily accomplished when feeding large prey items.

Well in the case of the bat hunting ones, I'd even go so far as to suggest that vertebrates comprise the majority of their diets.

I couldn't find anything relating to exclusively bat hunting centipedes but there is an observational study of bat predation from 2015 that states:

Despite the fact that giant centipedes (Scolopendridae) are
voracious predators, there are only two records of bat predation
by scolopendrid centipedes: one in a cave in a thorn scrub region
in Venezuela (Molinari et al. 2005) and another in the roof of
a house in the Atlantic Forest, located in northern Espírito
Santo State, southeastern Brazil (Srbek-Araujo et al. 2012).
​

Which means that theirs is the third recorded account. I would think if they subsisted on a steady diet of bat then there wouldn't be so few reports.

 

[Najakeeper]

Centipedes are amazing predators and they will probably eat anything they can outpower. I am sure if one happens to find a nest of baby mice, it will eat them with gusto.

This doesn't mean in captivity, we have to replicate everything that "may" happen in nature. Otherwise, we would need to let them roam, introduce predators to the picture, put in some parasites etc. The simple fact is they can live a healthy life feeding on insects.

By the way, they also take pre-killed mice. Being slowly suffocated by Carbon dioxide is virtually painless hence if one has to give them mice, one can do that HUMANELY. Pushing the point of "A dead mouse is a dead mouse anyway." is an obtuse argument. There is a reason why in the modern world, people are executed with medication instead of "ling chi" for example!

 

[Jerry]

Well the hole l thing comes down to as long as we're all different and not carbon copies like agent Smith ( hello Ms Anderson ) there are going to be different opinions people will feel differently I don't give a good god damn what you feed your pets but when you post on a forum with a large and very diverse group of members and expect not to have people voice there opinion which is in direct conflict with yours especially on this forum where people are in my opinion were good at BRUTAL honesty and the get upset and attach some on else's option because it differs greatly from your is completely against what this forum stands for and I mean people on both sides of the argument the sharing of information to improve and advance the hobby so in summary your right your animals are yours feed them what you want but don't post pic and then get upset when people disagree with what you believe to be right people expresses your opinion but understand that just because you see it as a complete travisty to feed a centipede a live mouse doesn't mean others will CANT WE ALL JUST GET ALONG have a nice day

 

[Staehilomyces]

The discussion has been quite civil so far. I think we've all learned something; I certainly have. I see no need for alarm tbh.

 

[Jerry]

Wasn't alarmed just Adding my opinion

 

[Chris LXXIX]

Centipedes are amazing predators and they will probably eat anything they can outpower. I am sure if one happens to find a nest of baby mice, it will eat them with gusto.

"Gustavo gusta se questo è guasto" said the centipede.

Cracks me up the use/abuse of Italian words by non Italians: vendetta, fiasco, gusto etc :-s

 

[CladeArthropoda]

People underestimate the ability to feel pain in insects. Like Tomato Hornworms actually tend to their wounds.

And give me all the flak you want, but I would kill an infestation of rats just the same as I would for bedbugs. Just because it's a mammal doesn't mean it has any more value.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

This is late but how did I miss this thread? It comes down to the fact that mice are mammals and we can sympathise more with them than a roach or cricket. Inverts also feel pain differently and express it differently to a mammal. I'll probably feed a frozen-thawed mouse to my centipede one day, I wouldn't feed a live mouse because they're just too cute to me anyways. Centipedes hunt mice in the wild, that's a fact. This isn't the wild, that's a fact.

I don't think @Scolopendra Kendrick is doing this purely to watch something die for his own messed up fantasies (like that guy who was going on about tying up live rats for his Ts to eat) but I personally wouldn't and couldn't do it.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

I found a couple references to decreased lifespan when feeding vertebrates,

Pinkies and feeder lizards can be offered occasionally, but they are not designed to digest vertebrates as much, so they tend to make them obese and have a shorter life span. [1]

Keep in mind that overfed invertebrates, and especially overfed centipedes, seem to die much sooner than those that are kept "lean and mean". [2]​

The cited source is The Biology of Centipedes, although I do not have access to the book. There are multiple threads here that list overfeeding as a cause of decreased life span, citing faster growth & maturation leading to a quicker death, which is more easily accomplished when feeding large prey items.



I couldn't find anything relating to exclusively bat hunting centipedes but there is an observational study of bat predation from 2015 that states:

Despite the fact that giant centipedes (Scolopendridae) are
voracious predators, there are only two records of bat predation
by scolopendrid centipedes: one in a cave in a thorn scrub region
in Venezuela (Molinari et al. 2005) and another in the roof of
a house in the Atlantic Forest, located in northern Espírito
Santo State, southeastern Brazil (Srbek-Araujo et al. 2012).
​

View attachment 233523

Which means that theirs is the third recorded account. I would think if they subsisted on a steady diet of bat then there wouldn't be so few reports.

Well a bat is pretty much a rodent with wings, if the pede can catch and overpower it, it's fair game