Are they capable of perceiving the same kind of physical sensation we do?
I hope so, the little bestids. :mad:
Arguably not the same as insects have a hard exoskeleton that AFAIK doesn’t have nerve endings as does a human’s largest sensory organ. They can certainly feel external stimulous such as air pressure changes through hairs and antennae. If they feel pain is a separate question to which I don’t have an answer.
Insects don’t have anywhere near the brain capability required to feel much of anything. They have extremely simple nervous systems that simply react to their environment. They react to damage to themselves, but they don’t understand it or even think about it.
Neither do babies.
Hell, neither do I. When I’m in pain, I don’t generally stop and think about it or seek to understand it before going “Ow!” I generally don’t think about my pain at all, and if I do, it is entirely subsequent and secondary to the sensation itself.
Not that I think anything much can be drawn from this, but the OP asked about sensation, not understanding or cognition. The former does not depend in any way on the latter.
As to the OP, insects can certainly perceive damage to their bodies. This would fit the functional definition of pain. It would certainly be a stretch to say that they perceive it the same way we do, since their nervous systems are so different from (and simpler than) ours. What it “feels like” to a bug, or whether insects are even complex enough to say that perceptions “feel like” anything at all, are probably unanswerable questions.
If we have any entomologists in the house, I’m curious to know if injured insects have any real mechanisms to survive a serious injury, or do they just die? It seems like overall, the species might be more successful to just breed thousands of insects for a particular colony that actually have an ant be able to repair itself.
If an ant loses or breaks a leg, will a new one grow back? If a spider (I know, not an insect) loses an eye, will a new one grow back? If a termite gets sick, will it rest and have an immune response? Will other termites care for and feed it, or will they just let it die?
Enquiring minds want to know.