Do Ants Feel Pain?

Scientists disagree on whether an ant can feel pain, but studies are opening new doors into understanding. Two scientists from the University of Sydney, Associate Professor Greg Neely and Dr. Thang Khuong, completed research on pain in fruit flies (Family: Drosophilidae). Their eye-opening study proved that insects experience chronic pain after an initial injury has healed.

The researchers damaged a nerve in one leg of a fruit fly and gave it enough time to heal. They determined that the fly’s other legs were now hypersensitive. “After the animal is hurt once badly, they are hypersensitive and try to protect themselves for the rest of their lives,” said Associate Professor Neely. “It’s almost like an anxiety-like state, where once they’ve been injured, they want to make sure nothing else bad happens.”

Neely explained further, “The fly is receiving ‘pain’ messages from its body that then go through sensory neurons to the ventral nerve cord, the fly’s version of our spinal cord. 

While their research was not completed on ants, we can compare an ant to a fruit fly. They are both invertebrates and insects. An ant’s brain has 250,000 neurons and a fruit fly has 200,000 brain neurons. As scientists explore the world of insects with new technology, we will have a more detailed answer as to whether they feel pain or just sense a danger to their survival.