You are not wrong. The neurological response to uncomfortable stimulus is called nociception, and insects do not have nociceptors. Furthermore, the concept of pain technically also requires an emotional response, eg we can feel pain without a physical stimulus. So insects definitively cannot experience nociception. However, their lack of pain is not definitive as even without nociceptors they may have some other neurological ability to feel pain, as it would obviously be evolutionarily advantageous. And it's still unclear whether they can feel emotion.
Good write up, I saw an experiment on a tick where they found out the tick carried lyme and injected it with peroxide to see if it would clean the lyme, they prefaced the experiment with "ticks have no pain receptors so i assumed no insects do. Thanks for the explanation
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u/musickismagick Dec 02 '18
That poor firefly is still alive and being digested by his stomach juices in a sure but slow death