longhorn beetle! while they look like they were born from hell's pyres, their bites aren't bad at all; it can break the skin, like a crab pinching you, but just put a bandaid on it and you'll be fine if bitten
IMPORTANT EDIT: while largely harmless to humans, many longhorn beetle species are invasive in much of the US; the asian longhorn beetle can kill trees and produce falling branch hazards in forested or rural areas (information courtesy of u/BantedHam, corroborated by the USDA)
In fairness, looks like the fellow might have found his way indoors judging by the background, difficult to say if it's indoors or some sort of patio, but what I'm trying to get at is picking it up and taking a quick video before returning it to the outdoors might have been the merciful option here.
Congratulations to you both on being kind and polite people! I was preparing to read through yet another thread of "you're an idiot because MLEH" / "you can't even read because if you COULD you'd know I was saying SPLEH!"
You've both restored my faith in anonymous humans on the internet. What tattered little of it remains, anyways...
lol well read no further. Because I’m currently arguing quite meanly further down below with people claiming that bugs can’t fear or don’t fear or that we should care or blah blah blah.
Your comment was removed for being in poor taste or offensive, or maybe that joke you thought was pretty funny just didn't land. Please follow Reddiquette.
Common, low hanging fruit, repeated every thread "Reddit comments" are very often bot activity
Any time you see someone say something like you did or like, "Sir, this is Reddit! Get your nuanced conversations outta here!" and similar stupid ass shit, it's usually just bots
I don't love having my comment get called "stupid ass shit" but I suppose we're all here for different reasons. I didn't think of it as low hanging fruit so much as having been pleasantly surprised and making an offhand comment (engagement being the whole thing that makes the platform valuable)
My inclination is to think "oh this person uses Reddit more than me and has seen this type of comment way more often," but also, I use Reddit enough to have been pleasantly surprised enough to comment, so... different strokes, I guess
ETA: there are no original ideas in the world, right?
Well that's a absolute rarity, someone bein able to own it when you get called out instead of sounding/looking stupid trying to save face . . Good for you !!!
We are pretty chill here, but please try to keep things reasonably civil on this sub. No slurs, name calling or harassment and trolling.
Please follow: Reddiquette at all times.
Additionally, Reddit's Rules.
Yes, the internet makes us angry too sometimes, especially this particular comment.
I'll also add that things with this kind of coloration are often very dangerous. They're marked with colors like this to keep predators away. Sometimes those markings are just deception, but unless you know that's the case, you don't want to find out the hard way.
Pain and fear are necessary for survival. It may not feel them the same way we do because their nervous system is decentralized and their nociceptors are slightly different than a mammal's. However, their differences don't mean they aren't capable of being in distress.
The growling or squeaking (stridulation) you hear in the video is the beetle's threat display. How do you think the beetle decides to do this if not prompted by the fear that its life is about to end?
It's just more basic than that. I don't think insects feel fear. It's like a programmed response to increase its survival. Im open to hearing different opinions.
Honestly this is a highly debated topic among biologists, so there's plenty to look into if you're interested. I'd suggest starting with the studies which show bees playing with objects for fun, since it's really cute and probably the most palatable if you're not used to looking at scientific studies.
Screaming from a stubbed toe is accompanied by actual subjective experience and pain perception. A reflex circuit in an invertebrate isn't. By that logic, a motion-sensor light bulb is suffering every time I walk past it. Reflexes aren't subjective pain. Think of a Venus fly trap reacting to a bug landing on its hairs. Its not consciously thinking "oo yummy food!"
It needs to be able to tell that it's in danger or dying, or else bugs would walk into their death constantly instead of fleeing.
The light bulb isn't an autonomous creature that needs to keep itself alive, or else we would have programmed a system where it can detect and prevent damage as well.
Yes, but it still needs some survival instinct, simply being able to know it has been damaged isn't really enough to get it to understand what has harmed it and if it should fight back or flee.
We don't really know what kind of brain is required to be able to experience pain, but we do understand that it's useful for survival, until we are able to tell I think it's better to just assume it's possible.
The entire human brain is programmable in theory, and everything we *feel* is also literally just a bunch of extremely complex response systems. Fear is not a magical, non-physical thing.
I wouldn't say an insect is capable of making a "conscious emotional choice", no. Neither would I say a rabbit or a dog is. We still acknowledge that mammals are capable of feeling pain and fear.
I took this person using the word "conscious" to mean they think I'm saying insects have complex thought processes, which they do not. A fear response does not require that anyway. Neither do dogs, and I'm sorry if you think they do.
Your phrasing in the previous comment was contradictory—you said a fear response doesn't require a complex thought process and then added 'Neither do dogs, and I'm sorry if you think they do.' That implies dogs don't have a fear response. The point remains: mammalian fear is an affective emotional state mediated by a limbic system, whereas insect responses are decentralized reflex loops. They aren't comparable.
If you're not capable of understanding the subject matter adequately and have to resort to insults, it's not really my fault bro. Sorry google AI overview didn't give you anything of substance to respond with.
Mammals like dogs and rabbits have well-documented emotional capacity—they form strong bonds, show signs of depression, display joy, and make intentional choices based on past experiences and social cues, not just baseline instinct. Reducing animal behavior down to simple stimulus-response ignores decades of cognitive ethology and neuroscience.
That’s a wild thing to think. How do you imagine they survive without fight or flight mechanisms. Certainly some bugs that evolved to overwhelm with massive numbers like ants and termites might have the mechanism turned down, but even an ant avoids danger to some degree.
Jesus. It's fine. Hes holding it the right way and it's not an endangered species. Every entomologist in my department would do the same thing if we found it.
I mean, correct? Just because animals portray a certain set of characteristics doesn't mean you can ascribe an emotional factor to it. Like, a cat torments a mouse - even many mice - but you can't say the cat enjoys tormenting mice.
Humans are animals, all animals have emotions (albeit different emotions and different depth of emotion) based on electro-chemical neurological impulses in the brain as reactions to external or internal stimuli.
Can you people stop saying humans are animals. No fucking shit. Mantis shrimp are animals, does that you mean have the same visual acuity of a mantis shrimp? Duh.
No but emotions are objectively chemical reactions to external and/or internal stimuli. It’s not uniquely human because neuro-chemicals like adrenaline, cortisol, and dopamine are present in other animals and produce similar emotional reactions. The range of what they are able to express is different, sure, but fear (the one you claimed other animals don’t exhibit) is fairly universal among most known animal species. What you originally brought up would be more comparable to claiming that “mantis shrimp can see” is an anthropomorphism because you’re ascribing an experiential aspect to a crustacean that it doesn’t have access to.
Animals unwelt in different, granted, but for the vast majority of them with functional central nervous systems, fear as an emotion is fairly universal.
The chemicals aren't the emotions. In the same way we can measure wavelengths of light but not ever see UV light. You just have a fundamental misunderstanding of how emotions work.
This'll be my last reapons to you now. Read some books, even a whole lot of books, my love.
And it's you just assuming they don't feel things. We have no idea what the lived reality is for any other being on this planet. Erring on the side of empathy is better than cruelty.
Okay! So we both agree we have no idea what the lived reality is for anyone other being on this planet! I have no problem saying "dont pluck birds out of their nests," because duh, that's just common sense, but I am saying that saying "dont pluck birds out of their nests because you might cause that bird to have an existential crisis" is dumb.
Lol, except that birds are relatively smart, and they actually shown signs of grief and distress, such as decreased appetite, increased vocalization, and searching for their lost companion.
They act a certain way, and then we attribute that to grief. That's the whole fucking thing, dude. You can't show they're actually feeling something, all you can show is that they present certain behaviors. Behaviors that would exist with and without emotion. Correlation, that they act like we do when we experience grief, does not equal causation, that they are feelings grief. Cmon dude.
Yeah I think you’re really reaching there. Allow me to reach for you. Does the fact she is dead mean she didn’t literally convey that humans and animals as you so put it, are one in nature? And if we’re going to draw straws here allow me. Even by scientific standards, you are categorized as an animal. Which is why you and many mammals are able to eat much of the same food and even get treated with mostly the same kinds of medicines. We know the animals feel because many mammals have much of the same kinds of builds. They have a body, and a brain, other organs, which means they feel pain. The human is perhaps more further along in terms of sentience as many would say, however even though she’s dead, coco used sign language, and could send us messages in a language we understand.
You aren’t going to try and speak like she wasn’t at least seen as something living in the world that was good and had positive intentions when she would communicate and no one had to teach her that part. So we as humans can’t understand how it is like being in any other kind of body or species. There are people that straight up hate each other based on the color of their skin and that is taught to people. They learn to be bad from other bad people, you don’t come out bad. Someone makes you “learn” something that isn’t true and you end up being the one who has nothing better to do but repeat that crap to someone else and that is usually how hate is taught. You’re a good example of someone who needs to see that as humans we aren’t on the top of the world even in our own lives. We try and do our best and that is the important part. Now I want you to do your best to unlearn hate, I want you to learn about how life works down to à damn near spiritual level not just human life all of it, and then you can move on to learning about things that will make your life and other lived be they human or critter.
the typos+length together make it tedious, and then when you reach the end and realize how inane your point is, that’s the frustration… makes me wish I hadn’t
Right around to "are they reacting because they feel emotions or because they are reacting to stimulus?" huh? If I kick a dog every time I walk by it such that it starts avoiding me, right? Is it avoiding me out of fear or simply avoiding a negative stimulus? How do you tell the difference?
Not what I said either. You understand there's a difference between "Don't ascribe human agency" and "abuse animals" right? Like, one can understand we don't know if a bird feels fear from being plucked from its nest AND not want to pluck a bird from its nest for a billion other reasons (potentially hurting or killing the bird for example).
I dunno why you people make it out to be
Don't pluck the bird from its nest because it feels fear
Or
The bird doesn't feel fear so pluck it out of its nest
When the answer is
Don't pluck the bird from its nest because you might hurt it
Yes. It is a predator and they inherently enjoy the noises and reactions to harming prey as their brain is hardwired to enjoy those things during hunting.
Nope. They are hardwired to seek these sounds out. You are humanizing the instinct of "prey animal makes noise, seek that noise out, eat" to mean "I enjoy inflicting pain on prey animals." Thats exactly what I mean.
Right, but are they doing it because they are having an emotional response to it, ie having fun, or because millions of years of evolution have ingrained instincts that thats the best way to kill them?
Well seeing that dolphins are some of the smartest creatures on the planet and they have more efficient hunting tactics and they've been seen to not even eat the creatures they're launching/concussing.....
Please take time out of your day to pick apart my comment, I know you can't resist
Mammal brains have a lot of overlap (and I'm including humans because we are both animals and mammals), so it's actually kinda silly to assert that because a species isn't human, that means that their brain functions in some way that is fantastically alien to the human experience. Even some insects have been shown to choose play (e.g., bees playing with balls) when it isn't of any apparent benefit to them, and they truly are fantastically alien relative to mammals.
I encourage you to read up on the latest research on cognitive science. You'll learn a lot.
Just like how millions of years of evolution could have programmed a survival-based response in animals that can trigger physical reactions? Similar to how our heart rate increases when we feel fear?
Right, but the feeling of "fear' isnt tied to an increase in one's heart rate, right? You could show all the physiological signs of fear and not be feeling fear, right? Those are two seperate things.
They seek them out because they get endorphins and dopamine when they do it, which is called a chemical fucking reward. That’s the same mechanism we have for seeking things. And we say we enjoy those things because of the fact that we are chemically encouraged to do so just the same as any other animal.
To some degree you’re right. It’s not good to anthropomorphize animals. We can’t assign moral judgement to animals actions. But that doesn’t mean we can’t ferret out the causes and effects of some of animals actions, and correctly ascribe them to neurological phenomena.
Fear is what we label the “oh shit, I’m gonna get eaten” emotion, to make us avoid it. Because it has benefitted us as a species to avoid things harmful to us.
It’s not a stretch to assume that an animal or insect, who responds to things like grabbing, chasing, etc by trying to avoid it, is experiencing fear. At the very least it’s a stimulus it is trying to get away from, which is enough of a reason not to mess with it.
It is still an assumption though, you understand? Sunflowers move to follow the sun, human begins enjoy being in the sun, so do we assume the sunflower feels joy while being in the sun or do we stick with "reacting to a stimulus"? How do you tell the difference?
What purpose does it serve to question it, outside of philosophical discussions? It is reasonable to make that assumption. There are many things in life that aren’t certain, but I’d judge as likely. Like, I assume the little old lady will be happy if I hold the door open for her, so I do. I assume me being a dick to animals will provoke fear, so I don’t.
I don’t mean that the beetle is feeling fear the exact same way as we do, but it is trying to avoid a negative stimulation. I describe that as fear.
Well, it started with a person picking up a bug and then being told to put it down, because it was scared. Which is what turned into this.
The “how do we know it’s feeling fear?” was a sidetrack that could be interpreted as a rebuttal to folks saying to set it down. Having the exact classification of what the insect is feeling, seems less important to me than that which we can reasonably assume.
Your post or comment was removed for being off-topic, unsuitable for r/whatisit or perhaps you are lost, please try to find a more suitable subReddit for your submission, there's gotta be one here somewhere...such as....
It's been researched and confirmed that animals experience emotions, even as complicated as empathy. But you keep doubling down, because the "Dunning-Kruger effect" has also been thoroughly studied and I've got more links to post!
"a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge or competence in a given intellectual or social domain greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that domain"
https://www.britannica.com/science/Dunning-Kruger-effect
You are the very definition of this in this thread. You have limited knowledge about the concept of emotions and an animal's ability to experience it. You also seem to slide that we have no way of knowing the answer without an exact language (spoken, sign, etc).
And yet I linked numerous articles and studies, peer reviewed and from legitimate sources, that say you are wrong. You even insist I am wrong about you exemplifying the Dunning-Kruger effect while I'm literally quoting and explaining how you exemplify it.
You are also insulting people, including me, rather than giving any legitimate idea beyond "nuh-uh". It's interesting that you are trying to put me down when my comment wasn't even my own words. I linked and summarized other people's knowledge, not my own, but you insult me....
Weird typo for someone calling themselves "perfect"
No, it's 100% being applied appropriately. Your feelings about it don't change the fact
You are a person of limited knowledge. A person with extensive knowledge on the topic wouldn't get the answer wrong and they'd be able to competently prove their idea, which you haven't done. That's why I quoted others, because I have limited knowledge. So rather than make up random bullshit like you, I cited and quoted more knowledgeable people.
Saying you are less knowledgeable on a subject is not an insult. It is a fact.
Well for one I’m 40, not 70. For 2 I autistic, not a harp in addict. And for three: here’s the important one: patchouli is disgusting and I like showers.
Emotions has a lot of definitions. It’s a word that’s not particularly specific. In this case if we’re calling fear an emotion, and if by fear we mean the fight or flight mechanism, yes they absolutely do.
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u/overdramaticpan 6h ago edited 1h ago
longhorn beetle! while they look like they were born from hell's pyres, their bites aren't bad at all; it can break the skin, like a crab pinching you, but just put a bandaid on it and you'll be fine if bitten
IMPORTANT EDIT: while largely harmless to humans, many longhorn beetle species are invasive in much of the US; the asian longhorn beetle can kill trees and produce falling branch hazards in forested or rural areas (information courtesy of u/BantedHam, corroborated by the USDA)