Do insects feel pain?

[Ron Gatrelle]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Woody Woods" <woody.woods at umb.edu>
Subject: Re: Do insects feel pain?


> Sorry to add this so late-- been tied up-- but, about insects often
showing
> "little outward sign of distress" after serious injury:
>
> A few years back, someone in the lab where I did undergraduate research
was
> measuring the pumping rate of the cibariopharyngal (nectar) pump in the
moth
> M. sexta. To do this, he had to remove the heads of quite a few moths
that
> were chilled before surgery. Since he needed only the heads, he set the
rest
> aside. The headless moths, once they returned to room temperature,
behaved
> as though they did not miss their heads much; they walked, shivered their
> wings to warms up, flew-- and, in one case, mated, though possibly only
> because they were in a small container.
>
> Yikes.
>
> Woody
********************

Try that with birds.  Shows how absolutely stupid the statements one sees
every now and then from certain quarters on how "butterflies are just like
birds" is.   This equating of birds to one of their foods is quite
demeaning to BIRDS.  But what royalty it makes these "bugs" -- just because
they happen to be pleasant to human eyes.

Ron Gatrelle

PS  The headless moths prove zombies are real.... and that having sex is
more important than eating.  (But then, that is proved by just asking any
17 year old boy :-)



 
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