Crickets, Eaten by the Billions, May Feel Pain

Consider this the next time you feel compelled to crush a cricket beneath your shoe: That little bug can probably feel pain. In an experiment described in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, scientists briefly touched one antenna of some crickets with a soldering iron tip—hot enough to be unpleasant but not harmful, the Guardian reports. Those insects then repeatedly groomed and fussed over the specific antenna at twice the rate of crickets who were touched with an unheated probe or given no contact at all, and "spent roughly four times longer doing so," University of Sydney researchers write at the Conversation.

Lead researcher Thomas White and co-author Kate Lynch argue the crickets showed "flexible self-protection," the kind of response that would signal pain if we observed it among our pets or other loved ones. They say it's very much like how a dog licks a sore paw or a person rubs a burned hand. The findings add to a growing body of work indicating that many invertebrates, including insects, have conscious experiences. Another recent study found lobsters, another invertebrate, also feel pain. With billions of crickets farmed globally for food and research, experts say society may soon have to grapple with what insect welfare should look like—and whether reflexively killing them still squares with what science is uncovering.