Scientists Have Known Insects Experience Something Like Pain, but New Research Provides Compelling Evidence Suggesting That Insects Also Experience Chronic...
Scientists have known insects experience something like pain, but new research provides compelling evidence suggesting that insects also experience chronic pain that lasts long after an initial injury has healed.
Do bugs feel physical pain?
Over 15 years ago, researchers found that insects, and fruit flies in particular, feel something akin to acute pain called “nociception.” When they encounter extreme heat, cold or physically harmful stimuli, they react, much in the same way humans react to pain.
Answer by Matan Shelomi, entomologist, on Quora: Insects can sense damage being done to them and can avoid it, but do not suffer emotionally and, it seems, have a limited ability to sense past damage (broken limbs) or internal damage (being eaten alive by a parasitoid).