Molting painful?

[nomadofthehills]

Plants do NOT feel pain lol...

 

[Midnightrdr456]

i dont think it would be painful anyway, though like people said not necessarily pleasant either. When snakes shed their skin its not painful and the process seems to really be similar, its jsut casting off dead skin, like peeling yourself after being sunburned.

 

[Talkenlate04]

There have been several studies that suggest plants emit a vibration when a limp is removed. I am unsure of what was used to measure that vibration but I seem to have a fixation on reading about it now so ill get back to you.

 

[jamesc]

It's not that I don't believe you , but where is that info from ?

I'll try and locate the info again but it has been a very long time since I researched the subject. We had a thread going to discuss it but I can't recall which forum it was on way back then. Not much is for sure when it comes to tarantulas, it is still a pretty new subject so I am always open to new information.

 

[Thoth]

Here's a giant thread on invert pain, posts by Code Monkey, resident entomologist, are the most useful and informative.

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=40470&page=1&highlight=pain

 

[phil jones]

Tarantulas don't experience pain like we do, they only respond to outside stimuli.

how would you know ? did you ask any ( t ) how it is for them !!!!!

 

[Stylopidae]

how would you know ? did you ask any ( t ) how it is for them !!!!!

We know because the nervous system of a tarantula isn't complex enough to process stimuli like that of a human.

I've compiled a list of quotes from some of the most knowledgable walking dictionaries on this forum and included is Code Monkey, who is (as Thoth mentioned) our resident entomologist.

So if you can find any proof otherwise, then go for it. Just make sure it's from a reliable source.

But asking us if we actually talk to tarantulas is a really crappy way to prove any point.

http://www.parl.gc.ca/37/2/parlbus/commbus/senate/Com-e/lega-e/witn-e/shelly-e.htm


http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showpost.php?p=398617&postcount=36

Who here believes Ts can also appreciate the difference between HDTV and regular analog television? An old AM radio verus 5.1 surround sound from Sirius satellite radio? How about the smoothness of silk versus burlap?

Come on, raise your hands?

I'm guessing no one, yet they can certainly sense all of these things but how their brain processes the stimuli (it is wrong to insist inverts don't have a brain, Ts do in fact have one of the larger invert brains) is limited both by the sense organs and the complexity of their nervous system.

Yet you emo heads will sit here and insist they can *feel* pain. Bollocks.

A single celled amoeba will avoid negative stimuli, these gross behavioral responses related to avoiding danger have as much to do with demonstrating *feeling* pain as lack of gross behavioral responses have to do with demonstrating joy and ecstasy in a tarantula, or do you believe they can do that too?

i think some ppl are missing a distinction between pain and negative stimuli

pain:
http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?bo...ionary&va=pain

quote:
2 a : usually localized physical suffering associated with bodily disorder (as a disease or an injury); also : a basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by physical discomfort (as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leading to evasive action b : acute mental or emotional distress or suffering : GRIEF

this definition highlights two important things. a certain order of efferent nerves are required for pain and there is an emotional like, context to pain that requires a certain degree of sophistication.

granted m-w ain't exactly the end all and be all of knowledge, but it helps to draw a distinction between what the like, lower and higher animals experience

EDIT:

BUT!!!!
(_)_) (that's a big butt)
if you ever visit my house you will find my spiders set up in as stressless an environment as i can manage... and you won't catch me poking 'em with sticks... just cuz they can't feel pain, per se, doesn't mean stuff isn't deletorious for them

Exactly. Negative taxis, abnormal behavioral responses, etc. are 100% signs that something is happening to the creature that is not beneficial, but it does not mean they are suffering, despairing, or slipping into depression.

Folks: anthropomorphism wasn't true with your fuzzy stuffed animals when you were wee children, it isn't true with your fuzzy spiders now that you're older

Here is another example for you: T's are known to pull their own legs off if those are damaged. This occurs even when there is no emediate bleeding. Try taking your own leg of just because it doesn't really function as you'd like it to. Or just imagine you'd be ripping on a finger 'til it comes of or imagine cutting it off with a knife.

Even if you had the luxury of doing that just for the sensation of it I bet nothing in the world would convince you to do this because it's just too painful. Now imagine, the spider has 7 more legs it can use even if one is limp, but still it choses to take its leg off eventho it would function well with that limp attached.

That too should show you that Ts "look" on the sensation of pain differently than mammals...

At the risk of carrying out this exercise in futility at breaking through emotions masquerading as analysis any further, there is nothing nonsensical about the argument at all.

There is nothing in a tarantula or a lobster or a cricket or slug or any similar creature that physiologically demonstrates a capacity for anything beyond a creature that is largely a skinner-box with a wee bit of associative and habituative learning on top for some behavioral flexibility.

Now, go ahead and reject the best information that the scientific method can give us regarding the abilities of the nervous system of such creatures under the blanket guise of "science doesn't know everything" if you want, but keep in mind that once you leave what rational analysis tells us, you're in purely made up land.

To reject what science tells us about invert nervous systems is to put you in a sitution where I can claim that not only don't Ts feel pain, but they actually feel exquisite, exploding ecstasy from having their leg pulled off and the reaction you see is because they're afraid the pleasure will be too intense and they'll pass out and be unable to escape from a predator while in their state of bliss. Furthermore, the subsequent lack of reaction after you've pulled the leg off is because they are all blissed out.

I have every bit as much proof of that bit of anthropomorphism as you do for them suffering.

Because we know they don't have anything to feel with - you needn't figure out someway to obliterate your mind by placing it inside a nervous system that lacks any awareness to know what *no awareness* "feels" like: no awareness = no suffering.

I honestly do not understand why this topic comes up, I honestly do not understand why there is debate. If someone insisted that Ts could learn language I hope that no one here would agree. Yet how do we *know* they can't learn language, oh yeah, no anatomical structures for it. How do we know they can't fly, oh yeah, no anatomical structures for it. How do we know they can't shoot lasers out of their spinnerets, oh yeah, no anatomical structures for it.

Yet when it comes to this emotionally laden subject, suddenly there is all this room for debate with people. Suddenly the whole of neurophysiology and behavioral science is inadequate even though its how you accept such basic facts as the limited colour spectrum seen by dogs or cats - it's not like we asked them, we jammed probes in their brains and nerves and measured when they fired and in response to what. And when it comes to inverts, their nerves have been poked and prodded millions of times over - there's nothing there that indicates anything required to suffer, but yet you'll still fall back on your "we can't know" even though we do know for all intents and purposes.

If you think there is even a slight chance your tarantulas have awareness enough to suffer from negative stimuli, then the same goes for the crickets and roaches you feed them, the same goes for the mosquito on your arm you just smashed, and the same goes for the fleas on your dog. And if its the fact that they respond and avoid negative stimuli that opens this doubt for you, then please throw out your bleach and soap, because you can get flagellated bacteria to move towards positive things and away from negative things for them, clearly they might be aware and suffering from our actions as well

You see, writing stuff like this is exactly like talking to a wall. I could write a thousand page paper on this and there'd still be a few idiots who still want to believe that a tarantula is a miniature dog or cat no matter how much proof they were given to the contrary. This is simply not the case. These people would continue to ask rhetorical questions as if that's the end all be all proof that bugs can't feel pain.

Negative stimuli and pain are completely different reactions. End of story. No invertebrate can feel pain.

 

[DrAce]

Was going to post a detailed message

I was going to get on a high horse and post something long winded and thoughtful, but CodeMonkey bet me to it in the thread listed above (By Thoth).

Seriously, ya'll should read it if you haven't. It's very good, and really deals with the 'pain' topic quite well.

That is, of course, only half the original topic - "Is Moulting Painful?"

I wouldn't think they feel it, anymore than cutting your hair would be, but that's a guess. I would have thought that evolution would have wired them to be used to the moulting. Of course, they can't 'feel pain' in the way your girlfriend was meaning, so the answer is no.

 

[ribnum]

yah it hurts

yah it hurts imagine shedding your whole skin as a human being?is it more clearer????

 

[DrAce]

yah it hurts imagine shedding your whole skin as a human being?is it more clearer????

I can think of some people I'd like to skin...

But that tarantula has spent several weeks getting ready. They have a new layer of skin underneath, not open flesh.

 

[phil jones]

I can think of some people I'd like to skin...

But that tarantula has spent several weeks getting ready. They have a new layer of skin underneath, not open flesh.

AND SO CAN I :wall: :wall: :wall:

 

[jr47]

i think alot of people here are very narrow minded on this. first of all if a t can feel vibration the way they do than how can they not have a nerves to also feel pain. they are very sensitive to any vibration or air disturbance as anyone knows that keeps them. so therefor how can you posibly say that you know they cant feel pain to the same degree. thats just plain closed minded and ignorant. kind of like when science proved that its impossible for bumble bee's to fly.

 

[DrAce]

Neuro-biology, philosophy and 'Pain'

There's a few good points in the thread listed above about Invertebrates and 'pain'. It might be worth summarising them here.

Firstly, and importantly, this is a really technical subject, and I'm not an expert on the physiology of pain. That being said, I have read quite a bit about it, and have had to look at it for several institutional animal ethics courses (particularly in my current workplace).

'Pain' is NOT a negative response to an external stimulus. A good example is phantom pains in amputee patients, or differred pain from internal injury. 'Pain' is associated with a very complicated nurological response in a few higher mammals. If you probe the inner workings of a Tarantula brain you'd find a response to a stimulus, but no higher reasoning for the required sensation of 'pain'. We put you under anesthetic for surgery so that your higher brain functions are off and you don't feel pain. It's the same in spiders, except those higher functions were never there to start with.

We know this to be true. That 'Bumble-bees can't fly' message is unhelpful and actually quite offensive. Mankind has come a long way in terms of neurophysiology. Actually, I suspect that no-one did actually say "bumble-bees can't fly"... rather "I don't know how they do fly".

Let me ask you this:
Is it possible, just possible, that you are anthropomorphising your spiders, and that they really don't feel pain? Just because YOU feel pain doesn't mean THEY do. Can you show me that they do? I have evidence that they can't... what have you got? READ the thread above, and get informed. Then argue a point. I think it's narrow-minded to label and dismiss those with a different opinion as 'narrow-minded'. There is good reason for us to think this way, good, sound reasoned logic. It's more than many have.

And back to my original point, evolution probably removed any discomfort from moulting; they've gotta do it anyhow.

 

[Stylopidae]

Firstly, and importantly, this is a really technical subject, and I'm not an expert on the physiology of pain.

I'd also like to point out that Code Monkey here on the boards is also one of the most qualified people on the subject, having been through graduate school and being more familiar with the invertebrate nervous system than any of us, which is why I keep quoting him.

i think alot of people here are very narrow minded on this. first of all if a t can feel vibration the way they do than how can they not have a nerves to also feel pain. they are very sensitive to any vibration or air disturbance as anyone knows that keeps them.

Bacteria will move away from negative stimuli. Bacteria can't feel pain because they don't have a nervous system.

so therefor how can you posibly say that you know they cant feel pain to the same degree. thats just plain closed minded and ignorant. kind of like when science proved that its impossible for bumble bee's to fly.

Because we can take a look inside vertebrate brains and see roughly the process of exactly what pain is and then analyze a tarantula's brain to see how it reacts to different stimuli and come to two conclusions.

1.) The tarantula does not have the analogous structures in it's brain required to feel pain as we classically feel pain.

Actually, a tarantula doesn't have much of a brain period.

2.) The tarantula does not respond to pain like vertebrates normally would.

Whenever I tear off the tarsi of a cockroach to feed it off, it will not favour any one particular leg like you would if I ripped your foot off (it's basically the same thing).

I've had mantids cut in half from breeding attempts that still eat normally for days afterwards.

Tarantulas will pull injured limbs off when they don't work quite right.

Half eaten crickets will act normal. I've seen half eaten roaches attempt to mate several days after the fact!

All of these point to the absense of actual pain as vertebrates feel it. Now a tarantula may feel a mild irritation of some sort, but there is no way they could feel the same pain you and I would.

kind of like when science proved that its impossible for bumble bee's to fly.

Dig up the original source for this comment because I'm having a real hard time taking you seriously on face value.

It's obvious that none of you have a working knowledge of neurophysiology...so why not research the subject instead of making assumptions?

how would you know ? did you ask any ( t ) how it is for them !!!!!

We know because the nervous system of a tarantula isn't complex enough to process stimuli like that of a human.

I've compiled a list of quotes from some of the most knowledgable walking dictionaries on this forum and included is Code Monkey, who is (as Thoth mentioned) our resident entomologist.

So if you can find any proof otherwise, then go for it. Just make sure it's from a reliable source.

But asking us if we actually talk to tarantulas is a really crappy way to prove any point.

http://www.parl.gc.ca/37/2/parlbus/commbus/senate/Com-e/lega-e/witn-e/shelly-e.htm


http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showpost.php?p=398617&postcount=36

Who here believes Ts can also appreciate the difference between HDTV and regular analog television? An old AM radio verus 5.1 surround sound from Sirius satellite radio? How about the smoothness of silk versus burlap?

Come on, raise your hands?

I'm guessing no one, yet they can certainly sense all of these things but how their brain processes the stimuli (it is wrong to insist inverts don't have a brain, Ts do in fact have one of the larger invert brains) is limited both by the sense organs and the complexity of their nervous system.

Yet you emo heads will sit here and insist they can *feel* pain. Bollocks.

A single celled amoeba will avoid negative stimuli, these gross behavioral responses related to avoiding danger have as much to do with demonstrating *feeling* pain as lack of gross behavioral responses have to do with demonstrating joy and ecstasy in a tarantula, or do you believe they can do that too?

i think some ppl are missing a distinction between pain and negative stimuli

pain:
http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?bo...ionary&va=pain

quote:
2 a : usually localized physical suffering associated with bodily disorder (as a disease or an injury); also : a basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by physical discomfort (as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leading to evasive action b : acute mental or emotional distress or suffering : GRIEF

this definition highlights two important things. a certain order of efferent nerves are required for pain and there is an emotional like, context to pain that requires a certain degree of sophistication.

granted m-w ain't exactly the end all and be all of knowledge, but it helps to draw a distinction between what the like, lower and higher animals experience

EDIT:

BUT!!!!
(_)_) (that's a big butt)
if you ever visit my house you will find my spiders set up in as stressless an environment as i can manage... and you won't catch me poking 'em with sticks... just cuz they can't feel pain, per se, doesn't mean stuff isn't deletorious for them

Exactly. Negative taxis, abnormal behavioral responses, etc. are 100% signs that something is happening to the creature that is not beneficial, but it does not mean they are suffering, despairing, or slipping into depression.

Folks: anthropomorphism wasn't true with your fuzzy stuffed animals when you were wee children, it isn't true with your fuzzy spiders now that you're older

Here is another example for you: T's are known to pull their own legs off if those are damaged. This occurs even when there is no emediate bleeding. Try taking your own leg of just because it doesn't really function as you'd like it to. Or just imagine you'd be ripping on a finger 'til it comes of or imagine cutting it off with a knife.

Even if you had the luxury of doing that just for the sensation of it I bet nothing in the world would convince you to do this because it's just too painful. Now imagine, the spider has 7 more legs it can use even if one is limp, but still it choses to take its leg off eventho it would function well with that limp attached.

That too should show you that Ts "look" on the sensation of pain differently than mammals...

At the risk of carrying out this exercise in futility at breaking through emotions masquerading as analysis any further, there is nothing nonsensical about the argument at all.

There is nothing in a tarantula or a lobster or a cricket or slug or any similar creature that physiologically demonstrates a capacity for anything beyond a creature that is largely a skinner-box with a wee bit of associative and habituative learning on top for some behavioral flexibility.

Now, go ahead and reject the best information that the scientific method can give us regarding the abilities of the nervous system of such creatures under the blanket guise of "science doesn't know everything" if you want, but keep in mind that once you leave what rational analysis tells us, you're in purely made up land.

To reject what science tells us about invert nervous systems is to put you in a sitution where I can claim that not only don't Ts feel pain, but they actually feel exquisite, exploding ecstasy from having their leg pulled off and the reaction you see is because they're afraid the pleasure will be too intense and they'll pass out and be unable to escape from a predator while in their state of bliss. Furthermore, the subsequent lack of reaction after you've pulled the leg off is because they are all blissed out.

I have every bit as much proof of that bit of anthropomorphism as you do for them suffering.

Because we know they don't have anything to feel with - you needn't figure out someway to obliterate your mind by placing it inside a nervous system that lacks any awareness to know what *no awareness* "feels" like: no awareness = no suffering.

I honestly do not understand why this topic comes up, I honestly do not understand why there is debate. If someone insisted that Ts could learn language I hope that no one here would agree. Yet how do we *know* they can't learn language, oh yeah, no anatomical structures for it. How do we know they can't fly, oh yeah, no anatomical structures for it. How do we know they can't shoot lasers out of their spinnerets, oh yeah, no anatomical structures for it.

Yet when it comes to this emotionally laden subject, suddenly there is all this room for debate with people. Suddenly the whole of neurophysiology and behavioral science is inadequate even though its how you accept such basic facts as the limited colour spectrum seen by dogs or cats - it's not like we asked them, we jammed probes in their brains and nerves and measured when they fired and in response to what. And when it comes to inverts, their nerves have been poked and prodded millions of times over - there's nothing there that indicates anything required to suffer, but yet you'll still fall back on your "we can't know" even though we do know for all intents and purposes.

If you think there is even a slight chance your tarantulas have awareness enough to suffer from negative stimuli, then the same goes for the crickets and roaches you feed them, the same goes for the mosquito on your arm you just smashed, and the same goes for the fleas on your dog. And if its the fact that they respond and avoid negative stimuli that opens this doubt for you, then please throw out your bleach and soap, because you can get flagellated bacteria to move towards positive things and away from negative things for them, clearly they might be aware and suffering from our actions as well

 

[DrAce]

Thank you,

Thanks, Chesire. I just couldn't be bothered finding all the links. I wish people did their homework on the subject before posting.

I think people need to go and read the damned threads on the topic that have been discussed before.

(Oh, and because I have an inferiority complex, I thought I'd table my Ph.D. in biochem at this point, and say that I also have a few clues on the subject... but not specifically directed to Tarantula brains. It's a freshly minted Ph.D., so I'm still not over getting it )

Also, as an aside, I actually own one of the old scientific texts where one of the more famous "bumble bees can't fly" people 'proved' that they can't: The Museum of Science and Art, by Dionysus Lardner (1854). He never actually said that. He said that he couldn't see how they could fly, and wasn't it marvelous that God intervenes on these matters to ensure that they stay in the air. Victorian scientists were so religious

 

[jr47]

well, first off. i wasnt meaning to offend anyone. and i am sure that i could be very wrong. i just feel it is narrow minded to think that we can know that there is no way a t can feel pain. im not saying i know that they can and they probobly dont feel pain as we do. all im saying is that i cant and i dont think anyone can say they do not feel pain and alot of people claim that they know that they dont.
as with the bumble bee thing, they did in fact say that bumble bee's cant fly but they do. the article said that the wings were to small keep the large body in the air. which is why they were studying them to try to find out how they can fly when science said that it was impossible for them to do so.
which the only point im trying to make is just because we cant prove a t can feel or not feel pain doesnt mean they cant. so, sorry if i offended anyone. just my opinion.

 

[Stylopidae]

as with the bumble bee thing, they did in fact say that bumble bee's cant fly but they do. the article said that the wings were to small keep the large body in the air. which is why they were studying them to try to find out how they can fly when science said that it was impossible for them to do so.
which the only point im trying to make is just because we cant prove a t can feel or not feel pain doesnt mean they cant. so, sorry if i offended anyone. just my opinion.

You know...I don't really get people sometimes.

It seems a lot of people have this idea of science as men in white lab coats saying things are a certian way and because of their qualifications being taken for fact.

The problem lies in the interpretation of the text.

Saying something is mathmatically impossible is just saying that a certian organism does something that doesn't jive with what's known about the subject at the time.

In the case of the bumblebee, scientists were using equations that were true for larger, heavier objects where minute air currents didn't effect them but erroneous for smaller objects such as honeybees that are constantly buffeted by smaller currents.

Whether or not they were aware of the currents is beyond me, but it's easy to see where this misconception lies.

well, first off. i wasnt meaning to offend anyone. and i am sure that i could be very wrong. i just feel it is narrow minded to think that we can know that there is no way a t can feel pain. im not saying i know that they can and they probobly dont feel pain as we do. all im saying is that i cant and i dont think anyone can say they do not feel pain and alot of people claim that they know that they dont.

Hey...sorry if you got the wrong idea. I tend to be a little blunt...and mean, especially when I think people are just spouting off and not actually reading what I'm saying.

You're right...to a point.

Nobody on here would debate the fact that cnidarians can't feel pain, despite the fact they have nerves.

However, we can take a look at how the vertebrate nervous system works and see where the center that processes the feeling we know as pain.

We can also look at the invertebrate nervous system and see that invertebrates in general (except maybe cephelapods...but they're not part of this discussion ) lack the complex nervous system to feel any sort of pain.

We can look at how an organism acts when it's injured and compare it to how definite pain feeling animals act when they're injured. If I were half eaten, I wouldn't be trying to get laid!

Ok...maybe I would (My not self-proclaimed title should be a testament to that), but I wouldn't be eating if I were cut in half.

Of course if my mate cut me in half, I'd question my taste in women.

Well, one of my exes gets part of my paycheck...but ANYWAYS...

Now, I'm not saying they don't have the sense of touch, after all...they do have nerves.

However, when a doctor taps your knee...you kick. It doesn't hurt, but it's still a negative stimulus...see what I mean?

Oh, and because I have an inferiority complex, I thought I'd table my Ph.D. in biochem at this point, and say that I also have a few clues on the subject... but not specifically directed to Tarantula brains. It's a freshly minted Ph.D., so I'm still not over getting it

Since I've nothing to lose...I just thought I'd table my two years of community college (hey...going to a REAL college in the fall) and mention that I have a combined four hours a day for researching stuff such as this.

However since I'm not a reliable source, I generally tend to find accurate sources on the internet (pretty much .edu sites only anymore) and cross reference them with information here on the boards and personal observations, experiences and experiments I do myself where applicable.

 

[jr47]

as i said, this is opinion as far as im concerned. not trying to prove im right or wrong. just try to keep an open mind and keep in mind that facts are many times wrong. we go on the best imformation we have and make a judgement on that.
as far as what i would do if cut in half im reminded of a story from my dad. he worked for the railroad his whole life. and was wittness to a terrible accident where a man go traped between cars thats they were coupling. it pinned him betwwen the hitches just below the chest. they knew that more than likely he would die when the cars were separated. he was very calm and asked for a drink of water which he drank. 5 minutes later he was dead.

 

[Talkenlate04]

I dont get how the train thing has any bearing on what you are trying to suggest..........

I know its your opinon but there are people that do this type of work their whole life...... and your right we cant prove they can or cant feel, but it has been proved that is not the same kind of feeling that higher life forms have.

 

[Thoth]

(Oh, and because I have an inferiority complex, I thought I'd table my Ph.D. in biochem at this point, and say that I also have a few clues on the subject... but not specifically directed to Tarantula brains. It's a freshly minted Ph.D., so I'm still not over getting it )

You know your degree doesn't count until you've gone through the hazing of a post doc or two. ;P



Nice to see another biochemist around, though.