Inverts & Pain - The Ultimate Thread

[Sterlingspider]

True on the last point, but really how much optimization does a simple invert need? MY point was w/o knowing the wild success rate you really cannot judge CB % good OR bad. simple as that. I would imagine though that in nature the % is not huge, given the large # of offspring. Low % success coupled with predation seems to beget large clutch #'s..
T

Well, yeah, thats generally the most common way to optomize and it says a lot about success rates (though it also says a lot about investment, animals which invest in young tend to have smaller clutches, except scorps apparently :? ).

But as far as whether a success rate is "good" or "bad", ask anyone whose male P metallica has just been eaten by some pretty lady who wasn't in the mood.

 

[MysticKigh]

"Of course, invertebrate organisms do not experience pain per se, but they do have transduction mechanisms that enable them to detect and avoid potentially harmful stimuli in their environment."

Erm, thats effectively what pain is.

On a personal level I prefer to act under the assumption that any creature has the capacity to feel pain. If, all truth be told, they do not have this capacity I lose nothing in being kind to my fellow creatures, and if they do feel pain, I have saved other creatures from harm at my hands (and hopefully at others). Note however, I am not a vegetarian or vegan.

Hear hear!! No point arguing the symatecs of "pain", but I have respect for other life forms ( except... unfairly perhaps... roaches) Anyway... it is incomprehensible to me that someone would deliberately injure another living creature for pleasure. It was believed for years that birds hadn't the ability to smell... now we know they just perceive smell differently. I will not work under the assumption that invertebrates "don't feel pain", when perhaps it may be, yet again, a matter of another creature perceiving something in a different manner.

 

[CreepyCrawly]

I agree with whoever said it first on here - pain is the message sent throughout the body alerting it of a problem. I am fairly certian that my Ts are capable of experiencing hunger, thirst, and I do know for certain that they know what they want. My P. irminia has very clear body language that tells me when it is not dark enough for her comfort level. My friend's B. smithi kicked up a cloud that left me with a rash for three days telling me that she did NOT want me to ruin her mat of webbing, and newly constructed burrow (which is going to break her heart when she has to start all over again from scratch when she gets into her permanant enclosure). Heck, tarantulas even groom themselves, and if that isn't proof that they like to be comfrotable then what is? Yesterday my G. rosea spent a large part of the day cleaning every possible part of herself off, from spinarettes, to legs and feet, fangs, the whole nine yards (or is it eight legs?). She felt dirty, or felt something along those lines that prompted her to spend hours grooming herself. If an animal can't feel uncomfortable, how would it know to do this? Two new Ts that I recieved today that were packed in deli cups with bark spent large parts of the day grooming themselves, as there was dirt and stuff all over them.

Our Ts drink when they're thirsty, will move around their enclosures in response to heat and light, we know they have senses for all of these things, why is it so different to think they can feel actual pain? While I'm fairly certian it's not the exact same way I feel pain, I'm also fairly certain that I don't feel pain exactly the way another human feels pain. Even from human to human our pain thresholds differ dramatically. But we all feel it (except certian people who lack that very special sense). I believe all of our arachnids feel pain. It is when I get down to the jellyfish, and the starfish and the like that I would begin to question it, but would never really hurt them, or cause them harm or discomfort intentionally.

I do eat meat, animals eat other animals - it's part of the life cycle. My Ts kill and eat other animals too. While I do think that it is shameful the way we have our beef and chicken (among others) raised and farmed, I don't think it is wrong in killing them. I think it is wrong to confine them and raise them inhumanely. Not wrong to kill them, but wrong to make them suffer. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone but me...

 

[Socrates]

I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone but me...

It all made perfect sense to me, and I whole-heartedly agree with you.

---
Wendy
---

 

[Cirith Ungol]

I think that the notion that Tarantulas don't fear pain is related to all these very old beliefs that have their origin in "ancient" and very unscientific times.

Thinking that animals in general don't have this or that kind of need or can't think and just react or that they don't feel pain or pleasure has in my oppinon only to do with preconceived ideas. "We" have always thought of animals that way, so that's why they "are" that way. I get the feeling that this also partly might have to do with that man stands above all other beings within christian belief. Since that belief is still very strong in many regions there might have been less inclination to actually study animals feelings - feelings which in a conservative way to look at animals don't even accur. (This is not a try to bring in religion into this thread btw! Since religion normally is a black hole of a topic I hereby apologize in advance if I have offended anybody in the world by looking at the topic from the before mentioned angle.)

It isn't that long ago, only a few years, that (I think) danish scientists made the tremendous discovery that pigs and cows which stay indoors quite a lot actually prefer to lay down on soft and warm surfaces rather than cold concrete! :wall: :wall: :wall: Why would anybody have to do a study on that? I agree that possibly not many ppl have thought of that because it isn't such an interesting topic to wonder about when you have other things you can put your money in, but com'on!!! I'd say that common sense could have told them that! Which animal that lives in normal conditions and has a body of the heavier variety would NOT want to rest on warm soft spot rather than concrete? They also discovered that the animals would be less stressed when resting more comfy. To me it felt a bit like an intellectual smack in the face that they were so surprised at that "discovery"!

To me that which I just said is a sign of how "people" think of animals in general. That animals are nothing really and that they always will be nothing. Yes, they are nice to look at and nice to eat ... but that they too have come from the same organisms we have (even if you have to go back to the earliest beginnings of evolution to find the common anscestor) that that species or line of organism has had exactly as many miliseconds on this earth as we had and that they too have developed during that time is seldomly someone who thinks about. Everything we don't know is treated as if it doesn't exist. It isn't treated with an open mind which is ready for change at the slightest sign that something might be different than thought previously, but it is put in it's little box of ideas and then left to die.

Even if an animal like a scorpion or tarantula hasn't changed much in the last 350 000 000 years, why is it then seen as primitive? I would say that an animal that "old" is actually extremely advanced, since it suites its sourroundings so well that it has been able to flourish without any big change!

Obviously you can say that primitive animals are the ones that don't have such a developed nervous system as we do for example, but again - why not turn it arround? Just because we have continued to adapt why are we more advanced? Couldn't we be called the primitive ones because we never got arround to develop into a perfect kind of animal and had to go on or get extinct? It was actually very close for us at one time. I don't remember the facts arround it very clearly and I don't really remember what human anscestor it was but at one point the only thing that actually kept the human line within the wheel of life was that they started eating fish. If it hadn't been for that they wounldn't have found food and thus gone extinct. None of us would have been on this forum then. What I said here can be found in the BBC series called "Walking with cavemen" or what it was called. I bet some of you have seen it.

So, I think it is a question of openmindedness vs closedmindedness. Fair and simple. If an animal moves away from a heat source because it get's too warm then it does so because it knows that it will get damaged when it stays that close longer. That is what we humans do when we touch a hot object. We don't touch the object and stand there for half an hour thinking "Darn this thing is really hot!!" but we jolt away removing our fingers before we even had time to think. So feeling pain doesn't have to do with intelligence and if the "feeling" of pain wasn't really included within some of the very earliest forms of life then I seriously doubt that there would be any life at all today.

I guess this isn't 2 cents anymore.. looks more like 5 or 10 cents by now.. well... maybe its "common cents". I've come to notice that some of my posts can get really long and that they might even kill threads... I hope that was only coincidental because if it was true It'd really puzzle me.

I invite anybody to scrutinize what I've said and comment on it I don't mind thinking my own thoughts through a second time when subjected to a different angle of thought. ...And I know I can be a bit provocative at times. No offense!

 

[danread]

I think most of you are confusing the issue here. There is no question at all that tarantulas can respond to stimuli. Of course they will respond to warmth, physical damage, light etc. What is in question is are tarantulas capable of suffering due to what we might percieve as pain. For me, the answer is absolutely not. I don't believe that tarantulas have the cognitive ability to be able to pervieve pain and allow it to cause mental suffering, they are simply responding in the way they are pre-programmed to.

Cirith Ungol, my belief has nothing to do with me thinking that tarantulas are in some way lesser or more primitive than us, or that all animals are incapable of suffering. It also has nothing to do with closed mindedness either. I am basing my understanding of the issue on my scientific understanding of the issue, not blatant anthromorphising. In your post you have made an argument against something that no-one was questioning in the first place, of course spiders respond to stimuli, that is how they catch their food, make their burrows, mate etc. Even the most basic of organisms like amoeba will respond to stimuli, but i doubt even the most fanatical animal supporter will claim they are capable of suffering.

 

[Cirith Ungol]

Hmmm Yeah, I can extrapolate a bit far at times... I kinda... can't stop at times I'll have to work on that... :wall:

I was mainly writing down my thoughts on this without having anybody special in mind... I just wanna be clear about that

But I do think that there is a lot of closed mindedness found all arround. I would say that most, if not all of you/us who are on this forum would not fit in very well in that, since the fact that you own a tarantula or other very uncommon pet would classify you as more open minded than the general public I basically point at. In regard to "general public" I most gladly point at my relatives and some friends as the forefront of my view on close mindedness. That said, I don't dislike them for that, I'm just a bit sceptical or would wish for improvement.. you get the point I guess.

I believe also that the same stimuli of pain or discomfort animals react to might just as well be exactly the same stimuli we feel. That said it doesn't make me stop go fishing or eat meat for that matter.

That tho comes closer to the topic of this post than what I've said so far, I agree fully danread!

I have not much to back my oppinion up with other than that I believe it is that way due to what I have observed and learned in my life. I would very much want ALL animals to be treated in a fair way, whatever animal it is and however "primitive" it may be. If one needs to kill it for some reason, do it right and quickly.

I must also agree that the topic of suffering due to pain with certainty does not apply to any other but the more intelligent groups of animals, eventho I've already had discussions about wheter very "primitive" animals will remember sources of "pain" and thus learn to avoid them. Which in some way could at least be interpreted as a forrunner to "remembering something bad" or "making a bad association with something". But I guess from remembering a source of bad stimuly to actual suffering might be a large step. I wouldn't know about that.

Whatever I've said tho, it's not that I say it is that way. It's more that I say "I think it is that way" and I absolutely don't KNOW the truth about it. All in all I'm more interested in the thinking process than the result because the result might only be a temporary one...

 

[David Burns]

It is sheer human arrogance to think that we know what another organism thinks or feels. We don't know what celery thinks or feels. We just assume it does not. We have no basis for that belief but faith in our own superiority, which is delusion. To give ourselves or other organisms rights, other then the ones that nature provides, is an extension of that arrogance.

 

[CreepyCrawly]

About repsonding to stimuli being a pre-programmed thing, something that they can not help but do. We are pre-programmed with many of our responses to stimuli, such as touching something hot. Even a tiny baby will jerk away without learning to, or be taught to. The idea of suffering comes when the animal is incapable of responding to the stimuli in the way it wants to, or is pre-programmed to. If it is hungry, and can't eat, that is where suffering comes in. If I my hand is burning on a stove, but someone else is holding my hand there and I can't pull away (my pre-programmed response) I am suffering, is that spider not also suffering? It is sitting in a continued state of hunger if not being fed... so to me, that is suffering. It wants to correct the imbalance, but it can't. To me, that is what suffering is. It wants to make itself comfortable - clean, fed, watered, hid, whatever, and it can't. This can be applied to any area, from pulling it's legs off to running and trying to hide. To me, they can suffer.

This last night I was watching a poor tarantula who had moulting complications gone haywire try to survive, and I have no doubt that it was suffering. Its legs were mangled from the position it tried to moult in, and instead of curving downwards, they were twisted up, feet pointing at the ceiling, and knees down on the floor... I have no doubt whatsoever that as it tried to walk, and started flailing that it was suffering. I believe it may not have been in pain persay, but it was suffering. I had hopes that somehow it could fix itself, but it died.

 

[danread]

So what about the amoeba that is subjected to a negative stimulus, is that suffering? What about a plant that is kept in the dark, is that suffering too? If you answer yes to either of these questions, i wont enter a debate with you, as you are so far on the other end of the spectrum that there is no common ground to cross on at all.

I am suffering, is that spider not also suffering?

This is whats called anthromorphising. You are making a huge leap of logic, and one that in my opinion just doesnt add up.

 

[Cirith Ungol]

So what about the amoeba that is subjected to a negative stimulus, is that suffering? What about a plant that is kept in the dark, is that suffering too? If you answer yes to either of these questions, i wont enter a debate with you, as you are so far on the other end of the spectrum that there is no common ground to cross on at all.



This is whats called anthromorphising. You are making a huge leap of logic, and one that in my opinion just doesnt add up.

Is it really such a huge leap? Are we really that different? :?

 

[danread]

Is it really such a huge leap? Are we really that different? :?

In short, yes. Our brain structure and neurological complex are far far more complex than that of an invertebrate, and our cognitive abilities are far in advance than that of any invertebrate. I'm not saying that invertebrates arent complex structurally, they in biological terms they are amazingly complex. It's just that it is quite apparent to me that they don't have brain capable of actually feeling fear, anxiety or any of the other emotions i would consider to amount to being able to actually suffer.

 

[Sterlingspider]

In short, yes. Our brain structure and neurological complex are far far more complex than that of an invertebrate, and our cognitive abilities are far in advance than that of any invertebrate. I'm not saying that invertebrates arent complex structurally, they in biological terms they are amazingly complex. It's just that it is quite apparent to me that they don't have brain capable of actually feeling fear, anxiety or any of the other emotions i would consider to amount to being able to actually suffer.

That's as much of a leap as someone saying they do have the capacity to suffer. And since when is the ability to cogitate existential suffering requisite to experience pain? Pain is a neurological response, a cell is stimulated, it fires, despite whether your brain is engaged or not, it causes unpleasentness sufficient to drive the stimulated creature away fromthe source of pain. It is no more "advanced" then the ability to percieve light (which we can all certainly say a tarantula has) there's no "cogitation" whatosever involved. Pain response is one of the single most primitive responses on earth.

That's like stating that it's fine to burn a person in a coma because they clearly do not have the capacity to "suffer". You still cause damage to them, their cells still fire, bringing the message of that damage to the brain, even if it's not necessarily "there" to parse the response into expressable feeling.

Even they are less likely to "feel" it then a tarantula.

 

[BakuBak]

Acually i think they do. I was once told by a few pet store owners that if a animal cruelty officer saw me pulling the legs off one of my Ts or having like a "death match" with some of them that i could get a fine, and maybe some jail time....tho i dunno if this is true or not.


-Mattyb

but this is sic !! if U kill moskito or a fly You should bepunished ? i dont thin so ,, so if U kill spider U shouldnt ,,, as well

 

[CreepyCrawly]

Well, my point earlier may have been unclear. I was just trying to say that if an animal is subjected to unpleasant (or painful) stimulus without being able to fix the problem that is causing it, how is that not suffering?

According to Dictionary.com:
suf-fer
1. To feel pain, distress, sustain loss, injury, harm, or punishment.
2. To tolerate or endure evil, injury, pain, or death.

So to me, the T that is being kept without food or water, or decent place to hide (or otherwise being mistreated) is suffering. Yes, I do believe that even plants can suffer, in a sense, as it pertains to the above definition. I did not say that they felt it the same way us humans do, as I am sure it is a very different way that they go through it. They may not even have any heightened stress levels the way we do, although I think they do. As someone mentioned on a different thread somewhere pertaining to H. lividums - if you keep them in a bare cage with no place to hide, they will stress out and die much sooner than a correctly kept speciman will. That says to me that the animal was undergoing physical problems due to the distress that it was caused by not having a good burrow/hiding spot (or otherwise called - suffering). Am I wrong to put things together like that? I may be the only one who thinks like this, I guess.

 

[danread]

That's as much of a leap as someone saying they do have the capacity to suffer. And since when is the ability to cogitate existential suffering requisite to experience pain? Pain is a neurological response, a cell is stimulated, it fires, despite whether your brain is engaged or not, it causes unpleasentness sufficient to drive the stimulated creature away fromthe source of pain. It is no more "advanced" then the ability to percieve light (which we can all certainly say a tarantula has) there's no "cogitation" whatosever involved. Pain response is one of the single most primitive responses on earth.

At no point in any of my posts did i deny the fact that tarantulas can respond to a stimulus that we might percieve to be painful. Please re-read what i wrote. What i am questioning is the ability of a tarantula to actually suffer as a result of this pain.

I have used this picture in a previous debate on the subject, but it is always useful to prove my point. The photo shows what is left of a male mantis that i left mating with a female. I left them together for about 12 hours, and when i came back i fully expected to find the male had been eaten. This was indeed the case, but when i came to pick up what was left of the male, i noticed it was still alive. So much so that it could still track my finger as i moved it in front of its head. Just out of curiosity, i tried to feed it a cricket, which it promptly caught and started to eat. It ate about a third of the cricket before i put it down. Now, for me, this is definite evidence that insects cannot feel pain in the sense that we can, as eating would surely have been the last thing on its mind. I see no evidence as to why tarantulas may be any different.

 

[Mattyb]

I care for my pets and give them the best possible care that I can. However, in general, I do not believe that they have the capacity to feel pain. The world can be a cruel place though and I don't have a problem with the eating of animals. If PETA had its way, the entire world population would be vegetarian. That is until some scientist claimed plants feel pain. In that case, if things were decided by PETA, we would all be screwed.

Do I suggest that we go out and torture animals for our entertainment such as Fear Factor, no way. Am I comfortable with the death of an animal for food, you bet.

I totally disagree with you. if they can't feel pain then how can they feel stress? I believe that all living things besides plants can feel pain.


-Mattyb

 

[BakuBak]

4 me stress is chemical reaction and pain is a feeling ,,,

 

[Windchaser]

I totally disagree with you. if they can't feel pain then how can they feel stress? I believe that all living things besides plants can feel pain.


-Mattyb

Stress is the physical response to negative stimuli. If a tarantula is placed in an environment that greatly increases its exposure to negative stimuli, the tarantula, or animal, will exhibit physical signs of this. In the case of tarantulas, this will be restlessness (in an attempt to find a safe place), bald spots (even observed in OW T's under high stress), lack of eating (though this can be normal for a T.), overly defensive as well as other signs.

Again, I don't believe that T's have the capabilty to process the stress in the form of an emotional response. Their response is purely a physiological response.

Even though I fell this way, that does not mean that I condone mistreating them.

 

[Mattyb]

Stress is the physical response to negative stimuli. If a tarantula is placed in an environment that greatly increases its exposure to negative stimuli, the tarantula, or animal, will exhibit physical signs of this. In the case of tarantulas, this will be restlessness (in an attempt to find a safe place), bald spots (even observed in OW T's under high stress), lack of eating (though this can be normal for a T.), overly defensive as well as other signs.

Again, I don't believe that T's have the capabilty to process the stress in the form of an emotional response. Their response is purely a physiological response.

Even though I fell this way, that does not mean that I condone mistreating them.

Ok, I understand. But I still think that they can feel pain.


-Mattyb