RTTB
Arachnoprince
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2016
- Messages
- 1,771
I suspect a lot of giant centipede keepers have slipped in a live pinky or fuzzy from time to time but wouldn't dare admit it.
It's a great question & one I asked myself.I'd like to pose a question. Say someone DOES find pleasure in watching their predatory pet take down it's prey. Is that really so bad? I mean, I agree that it's a little messed up to want to see anything suffer. But I've always loved watching animals doing what they do best. I love watching a good hunting dog work a field, I love watching an octopus 'become' its surroundings (not that I've ever seen that in person. I watch a lot of nature documentaries). I love to watch my Schultesia lampyrydiformis eating and molting and breeding (seriously. I just sit and watch them way more than can probably be considering normal), but I also love watching my ambly and mantids hunt those same roaches down. I find it all to be fascinating. As @Chris LXXIX said, these large scolopendra are basically little venomous armored tanks. They are extremely well equipped to be able to take down a small rodent with ease (based on what I've learned from this thread). I find that to be amazing, impressive, and fascinating! And I'll be honest. When I finally get one, I'm probably going to want to see it for myself. Does that make me a bad person? Maybe. I'm open to that possibility. I like to think of myself as just endlessly fascinated by the natural world, though.
I'm impressed that you put so much thought, and even research, into this. I guess I just come at it from a different point of view. Not to get all melodramatic, but pain and suffering are an inescapable part of life. Always have been, and always will be. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. If survival wasn't a struggle, then life on our planet wouldn't be as wonderfully diverse as it is. Now, I fully recognize that that's a much more convenient opinion to have when you're sitting comfortably at the top of the food chain, and you're not the one being paralyzed with venom and (arguably) eaten alive. I get that. And there's no way I would have such a nonchalant attitude toward pain and suffering if we were talking about someone I love, or any child for that matter. I guess I'm a hypocrite. But who isn't? At least I can admit that.It's a great question & one I asked myself.
Actually, first I asked myself, "Do I enjoy feeding my animals?" Dialog went something like this:
"Of course I do!"
"What makes that any different than this?"
"They're just bugs, they don't feel pain."
"How do you know bugs don't feel pain?"
"Because...they're bugs?"
& there was my first assumption. So I investigated it & the answer isn't quite that simple. Insects to varying degrees have receptors to detect & avoid damage but generally react to noxious stimuli in a reflexive way, like jerking your hand back from a hot burner. Presumably, however, they do not have the ability to experience the attendant emotional response that turns "sensors detect damage' into pain. There are both physiological apparatuses that when present point to an ability to feel pain & observable behaviors that accompany pain, many of which are absent in insects. The table below from the article linked is worth reviewing, but the entire article (& it's linked articles) deserves attention.
View attachment 233307
Interestingly a popular feeder, the hornworm exhibits behaviors unique amongst insects that will have me avoiding it as a feeder:
Noxious stimuli to anterior or posterior segments can evoke a transient withdrawal (cocking) that precedes a strike towards the source of stimulation and may function to maximize the velocity of the strike. More intense noxious stimuli evoke faster, larger strikes and may also elicit thrashing, which consists of large, cyclic, side-to-side movements that are not directed at any target. These are sometimes also associated with low-amplitude quivering cycles. Striking and thrashing sequences elicited by obvious wounding are sometimes followed by grooming-like behavior.The answer (as far as I have determined) is that generally there is reasonable doubt that insects feel pain, although some give the appearance that they do. Big sigh of relief, I'm not a monster.
The same cannot be said for mammals, it is demonstrably true that mammals feel pain & experience suffering. I think we must start with an elementary principle that states that willfully & unnecessarily inflicting pain on another is wrong. Sometimes inflicting pain is necessary, surgery for example, & when it is necessary it is acceptable. Problematically, this is a moral judgment for which I cannot formulate a logical proof.
I can say things like, empathy/sympathy is an evolutionary adaptation of social creatures to create mutually beneficial relationships, aids in cooperation & avoids negative outcomes. I can talk about Theory of Mind, that the ability to assume another's mental state as one's own is essential to understanding the other person & is an intrinsic feature of humans & necessary to form a concept of self. Generally speaking, this points to the evolution of a moral sense because it is useful for living in groups.
This human machinery is often (guilty) activated not only in response to other humans but to other living creatures as well. We anthropomorphize other creatures & in attempting to understand them we assign them human attributes. An example of this machinery applied inappropriately would be to see the suffering of the Frog in the video that @Chris LXXIX posted &, empathizing with the frog, demonize the centipede as a perpetrator or chastise those who stood by for failing to intervene. Importantly no one here is doing that, I think everyone understands that a centipede's gonna centipede & our moral imperatives don't apply in these situations.
What I think is happening is that people are putting themselves in the shoes of another person who is willfully & unnecessarily inflicting harm on an animal that is capable of experiencing pain. The visceral reaction is understandable to me because there should be an instinctive revulsion to inflicting pain, particularly in other mammals. This is demonstrable in the positive correlation between repeated animal abuse & violence against humans. Let me be clear, it is not killing the animal that is the problem, it is someone directly inflicting suffering on the animal.
Obviously this can be taken to crazy PETA proportions which I am not inclined to do, but I do believe that when an animal is killed it is incumbent upon us to do so in the most painless way possible. Insensitivity, or better yet, desensitization to directly inflicting suffering on animals correlates to our attitudes towards inflicting suffering on each other.
But there's absolutely nothing natural about keeping a centipede in captivity. True a pede will more than likely take down vertebrates much bigger than a mouse fuzzy in the wild. But they themselves are taken down by birds. As pede keepers we obviously don't put predators in with our pedes to keep up the "natural" pretense.I never got the sense that the post was about getting satisfaction from watching a live mouse being eaten. My reply is that it was a brutal scenario. Not cruel nor insensitive but brutal as nature can be brutal. A mammal
being eaten alive by a myriapod is indeed startling but it occurs in the wild I'm sure. Perhaps the mention of 'vertebrae sticking out' gave credence to those that think you were perhaps glorifying the event. Feed your centipedes whatever you want is my opinion just be prepared for backlash if you post it. That's just reality. For the record, I love meat.
A pede will accept a f/t meal. I fed one of mine a chick, sub adult rat and a large fish to which it attacked and ate. Obviously it didn't eat all of the meals but they where going to be wasted anyway.Wouldn't feed a live mouse to a centipede (even though a centipede would probably enjoy a meal like that), too slow of a death. But centipedes will take freshly dead animals as long a they've only been dead for a few minutes. I wouldn't consider feeding live vertebrates unless it was necessary.
While in life almost all of us sooner or later would fall in that, I don't think you are hypocrite at all. IMO on those issues a perfect hypocrite will be someone that views, for instance, a cricket or roach life less important than a mouse one. All (animals) life are importants, no matter how much differents, at 360°, those animals and their 'universe' is.I'm impressed that you put so much thought, and even research, into this. I guess I just come at it from a different point of view. Not to get all melodramatic, but pain and suffering are an inescapable part of life. Always have been, and always will be. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. If survival wasn't a struggle, then life on our planet wouldn't be as wonderfully diverse as it is. Now, I fully recognize that that's a much more convenient opinion to have when you're sitting comfortably at the top of the food chain, and you're not the one being paralyzed with venom and (arguably) eaten alive. I get that. And there's no way I would have such a nonchalant attitude toward pain and suffering if we were talking about someone I love, or any child for that matter. I guess I'm a hypocrite. But who isn't? At least I can admit that.
Which brings me back to why I originally commented on this thread. We all do things every day that are incredibly destructive to the natural world around us. If you eat factory farmed meat, those animals are treated in a way that, IMO, is WAY more immoral than allowing a scolopendra to be a scolopendra by killing and eating a mouse. I guess my problem is that people are so quick to pass judgement on someone else (whether warranted or not. I think not in this case), especially on the internet, without first stepping back and looking at themselves and trying to gain a little perspective.
I feel like I could've come up with a much more articulate response, but it's been a long, labor filled day, and I'm tired. Oh well, haha.
I'm not finding chrisweeets on Instagram.To those who have instagram check out chrisweeets posts. He is one of the best keepers I know of. He usually always feeds live and has beautiful specimens that are super healthy.
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.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.