ELI5- Why do bugs squirm when they are being hurt, but don’t limp when a leg is cut off? Do they feel pain? Or do they just have a protective reaction to harm that is being done to them?
In: Biology
Bugs are like organic robots. They don’t “experience” things like we do; their brain is more of a collection of simple stimulus > response actions. Bugs squirm when they are caught or being attacked, because over the ~~billions~~ millions of years, some of the bugs that squirmed when caught managed to escape the grasp of a predator, while those that did not squirm as much were less likely to escape. So natural selection favored squirmy bugs, because they would be more likely to survive long enough to have offspring. The bug does not think at all about the cause and effect of “If I sqirum around, it’s possible this bird will drop me”. It has no concept of its present actions causing a positive outcome in the future – it’s just reflexively responding to the stimulus of being caught.
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