Whatever. While wild predators play with live prey, they don’t normally do so in such away that the prey has much chance to escape. I doubt that the cat would be batting the gopher up in the air like that if it were still alive.
It occurred to me that this post may be seen as a jab at DocCathode. It isn’t. It’s just that ‘Nature is red in tooth and claw’ is a well-known paraphrase of a line in one of Tennyson’s poems. The actual line is Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw, and reminds the reader that Nature is violent. The paraphrase is a statement, as opposed to a reminder, and it’s always made me think, ‘Well of course it is!’
So I just wanted to make it clear I was not taking any swipes. I was just having a laugh at the phrase as it usually appears colloquially.
One crank, or are all of those scientists cranks? They did not just look at nerves - in fact they did not even look at nerves - but discussed neurotransmitters and other evidence of insects feeling pain. That was in 2009, but I read an article in *Science News * (IIRC it was Science News, but it could have been National Geographic or other periodical) very recently - this year - that evidence establishes that insects do feel pain.
Yes, because that’s how it is most commonly used.
That part I agree with. And I agree that animals aren’t trying to torment each other or inflict psychological pain on each other.
That’s what the discussion of the meaning of torture was all about. Other definitions aren’t really relevant with respect to the OP.
Where did you get that anyone thought that animals were intentionally trying to torment or purposely inflict physical pain?
You know we can see what you previously wrote, don’t you?
Yes I do.
Again…Where did you get that anyone thought that animals were intentionally trying to torment or purposely inflict physical pain? Which is where this conversation devolved too.
Because what you quoted does not say or imply that.
I even said the bobcat was playing with his food, which clearly indicates that I don’t think his torment is intentional.
You said he was “torturing for fun.” That indicates intentional inflicting physical pain for his own pleasure.
If you’re going to try to deny the clear meaning of what you wrote there’s not much point in discussing anything with you further.
Whatever!..I did clarify it for you, you chose to keep harping on it.
You just took the default positions of SDMB;
“The other poster is stupid and I must fix this.”………you know, the fighting ignorance mantra.
AND
“Once you say something no clarification in the world will change what I perceive that you are saying”
Followed by,
I don’t have to hold up to that standards I set for others and can brush them off with “there’s no point in discussing this further with you”
The unwritten script of SDMB.
Whenever nature is cruel, it’s purely incidental.
Whenever nature is kind, it’s purely by incidental.
i doubt spiders are particularly “merciful” (ignoring the implied intentionality). I doubt it’d be any fun to be eaten by one. But then, I doubt it’d be particularly fun to be eaten by anything.
And yeah, parasitic wasps – all sorts of fun.
You didn’t “clarify” it. You’re trying to pretend that you meant something different than the clear meaning of what you first posted. This kind of thing never gets any traction here, as you seem to already know.
I was an up-close witness to a battle like this a few years ago. There was this bee I found on the ground that I tried to feed some sugar water to. It soon became clear that one of the bee’s wings was damaged so instead of letting it get squished underfoot or eaten by ants I tossed it into the webbing of one of those underground spiders. Before long the spider came out to investigate and a battle for survival soon took place. Very violent it was, on a micro scale. Not long after it started, though, the spider stuck its fangs into the bee (between its head and its thorax) and that was pretty much it for the bee. I felt a little bad for the bee but with a ruined wing I figured it wasn’t going to last much longer, anyway, and this way the spider got a relatively easy meal, the bee didn’t get torn apart by ants (that’s what ants do with insects like bees, isn’t it? And I don’t think they use any anesthetizing agent, do they?), and I got my own personal nature show!
As I’ve grown older I’ve tried to gain an appreciation for all sorts of different creatures but wasps aren’t high on my list. I understand they serve some sort of function in nature and that’s fine as long as they’re serving that function as far away from me as possible.
I once saw a banana spider do this. (It was a Golden silk orb-weaver.) The speed and agility with which it was done was something to behold. I was like, “Dude!”
I saw that in an old David Attenborough series. Just amazing, almost like they were playing tennis with them.
But IIRC, it’s not torturing for fun, it’s tenderizing them.