do you know if insects suffer when sprayed with insecticide?

Answer 1

Great question. I have OFTEN wondered this. My biggest fear in the WHOLE WORLD is bugs. Oh God, I fear death less. YET!! I CANNOT crush them. I absolutely cannot hear or feel them crunching under my foot so I OFTEN resort to spraying them. And I have to be honest, it looks like they suffer pretty bad. And I am crazy because I FEEL BED FOR THEM! lol......Yes, I think they suffer

Answer 2

When you spray an insect with some of the slower-acting pesticides, they can certainly put on a show that would convince you they are in horrible pain--they twitch and seize and lose all control of themselves. However, research into the area has not turned up any conclusive evidence that the insects are experiencing "pain" as humans would know it. They lack certain parts of the nervous system that are correlated to pain reception.

Here is a very fascinating chart that compares different members of the animal kingdom to humans in terms of pain experience:

http://www-phil.tamu.edu/~gary/awvar/lecture/pain.html

To understand the chart, you should know that nociceptors are those endings of the nerves which send the signals that our brain recognizes and translates into "pain." As you can see, insects have been shown to lack these.

Others say that even if insects don't feel physical pain, that they still suffer from a mentally traumatic reaction due to their sudden immobility and uncoordination, perhaps even a foreknowledge of their death. However, studies have shown that insects lack the intelligence to form these sorts of thoughts: although they may instinctually react to the pesticide by scrabbling around madly, whether they feel any emotion about this is not likely.

So, in the end, there is a good chance that you are not causing any suffering by using insecticide, or at least not in the sense that we humans would recognize. However, if you're still feeling queasy, you could always take the advice of some of the other posters, and try to shoo the offending bug out the window. ;)

Answer 3

also a philosophical question, can lower life forms suffer
in extreme cases I've read/heard that the following cannot truly feel pain like a caucasian man (most statements below are BULL**** - don't believe them...)


non-mammals
any animal except human
blacks (or other non-caucasian races)
women (esp said of women in labor, that their pain wasn't really strong)
children (people claim that they can't feel pain like adults) - I got to personally experience that believe having some dental work done without anesthesia when I was young (ouch!)

if insects can feel pain, then they *may* suffer when given lower doses - depends on the method of killing them - imagine nerve gas (some insecticides act like that) might knock neural function without causing direct pain

Answer 4

hell yes they suffer and I like it. as a matter of fact I named my favorite magnifying glass that I use to roast ants. I call it puppy after my dog who was tragically run over by a car when I was 12. The real question is do they go to heaven when they die, do they believe in god, and will I go to hell for killing them?

Answer 5

Yes, I would never use it, I would step on them instead if I absolutely had to kill it....I respect all life but I understand that sometimes bugs, certain ones at certain times, must be dealt with.

Answer 6

Pretty sure they do. It's often a nerve gas. Ever watch them wiggle?

Answer 7

it kills them. probably pretty quickly though, depending on what kind you get. but there's like 86181681.864684 bugs out there in the world, and they're ugly, nasty, invasive things anyway so i dont care.

Answer 8

I'm sure they don't have a good time

Answer 9

absolutley