Mating..is it all that to fish?

[JamisonBWolsh]

My question is an honest one.


Humans take pleasure in mating.
Does fish... Or is it just instinct?
Im just thinking that having one male in a tank and no females...is that cruel and unusual punishment? when they mate..do they actually feel pleasure or no feeling at all?

If fish can feel pain (which they do)...can we assume they can feel pleasure as well?


No one has ever brought this subject up before and I would honestly like to know...

[Argento13]

The way Mr. Limpet chased after Ladyfish it must be more than just an average funtion :D

[jiggerpolebill]

there is an article in the last edition of BassMaster magazine about fish feeling pain. the main gest of it is that they dont. unfortunately, i dont have this issue in front of me at the moment, but i'll post exerts from it in the next day or so.

if they dont feel pain, im pretty sure they wouldnt feel pleasure either. maybe some physical satisfaction of having the mating actually "over with", but nothing more.

*EDIT* if anybody wants the contents of the BassMaster magazine, send me an email.

[jiggerpolebill]

did i miss something???

here's a starting point for you.....

http://aquanic.org/publicat/state/il-in/faq/pain.htm

http://www.g-feuerstein.com/Presse/fishpain.htm

http://www.cotrout.org/do_fish_feel_pain.htm

http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/faq/pain.htm

ill update when i can.

one more, from another board:

http://forum.aquariumhobbyist.com/goldfish/messages/1783.html

[JamisonBWolsh]

Thanks.. helpfull information...

[Mr.Jingles]

wait, if they cant feel pain or "pleasure", can they feel anything besides pressure changes and in some cases electrical signals?

in that case, what is all this talk of euthinizing your fish or chopping their heads off or what not in order to ease their pain. make it quick. yada yada. ???

[jiggerpolebill]

i suppose that could be more for our benefit than the fishes. the end result is the same. the way we reach that result and view it is the only difference i can think of.

[carpguy]

We'll never know what the fish actually feel. It seems clear to me that pain (and pleasure) is not something that our brains evolved recently and uniquely, like the ability to process language. These are old deep brainstem level things.

As far as mating goes, I remember reading somewhere along the line that what we as humans experience is only present in mammals that don't go into heat. The mechanics are similar but apparently the brain chemistry is not. Its the biological payoff that takes the place of being compelled by other impulses. I think its importance is that it allows us schedule when we have offspring. Since a lot of fish are "triggered" by enviromental conditions, I'd assume they don't have a pleasure drive that makes them want to mate -- they're waiting for the dry-season or the rainy season or whatever it is that they're hardwired to wait for.

[Rocketman]

Simply, Dolphins and Humans are the only animals that take plesure in sex. Sorry I can't say where I heard this from, but I recall it being from someone who heard something reliable. It wasn't too long ago either.

Remember, Dolphin's are not fish - they are mammals. And someone mentioned something about language earlier - aren't humans and dolphins the only animals (besides apes and gorrilas) to interpret language? This is a claim only I make, and I doubt it is true (my cat responds to thinks like 'kitty' cuz that what I call him... so he understands. Also my dog, when I spell his name to him 'M-A-X!' he knows it. Maybe because he recognnizes the 'x' sound, which would indicate understanding language.)

[vtfish]

Why wouldn't fish feel pain? Pain is necessary for survival. Pain is essentially really intense pressure.
People who have an interest in believing that fish are just numb beings- like people who catch fish with a hook- are absolutely going to try to make everyone believe they do not feel pain.
Do not believe it for a minute.
As for pleasure in mating, that is another story. I agree with above that it is more an urge, and a pleasure in the sense of fulfilling that urge. I once had a female firemouth and a female convict that were more than happy to lay eggs and pretend to mate.... and they were not actually ever physically mating.

-vtfish

[jiggerpolebill]

i dont agree with pain being necessary for survival. there are too many organizisms without central nervous systems for that to be true. and if it were necessary, then what about plants? obviously theyre living organizisms. nobody said fish were numb beings. but what they feel and interpret as pain is obviously very different from what we do.

if i have a place on my body thats all fat(like my head) and there are no means of recepting pain there, how does my brain know that it hurts when it gets hit with a hammer. it doesnt and it cant because the hardware isnt there to make all the transactions necessary to feel it.

[Richer]

Heh, if fish don't feel pain, whats stopping Mr. Fish1 from eating all of the eggs of Convict pair 2? Simple... the convicts beat the crap outta the Mr. Fish1. Mr. Fish1 feels an unpleasant feeling (aka. pain) and runs like crap. If Mr. Fish1 didn't feel pain, whats stopping him from just hovering around the eggs eating as the convicts beat him up?
Plants may not have central nervous systems, but they're are mechanisms that suggest that some plants can "feel" danger. There are a few plants that will wither when touched. Only to once again reform after they've been left alone for awhile.

-Richer

[Faramir]

Depends how you define pain. It's possible to have a system for detection of bodily damage and an instinctive reaction to avoidance of the cause of damage without the unpleasant experience we call pain. You could build a simple robot like that - could you say it "felt" pain?

But then you're getting into metaphysics. Do fish have a consciousness like ours? Do they have a "self" that can suffer in any sense like we can? Who knows?

[jiggerpolebill]

i dont think self preservation requires pain. in the above example, if i hit myself in the head with a hammer and im not able to feel it, it doesnt mean that im not conscious to the fact that if i keep getting hit, it will eventually kill me. survival instinct doesnt require any pain.

[pinballqueen]

Originally posted by Rocketman
Simply, Dolphins and Humans are the only animals that take plesure in sex. Sorry I can't say where I heard this from, but I recall it being from someone who heard something reliable. It wasn't too long ago either.

Remember, Dolphin's are not fish - they are mammals. And someone mentioned something about language earlier - aren't humans and dolphins the only animals (besides apes and gorrilas) to interpret language? This is a claim only I make, and I doubt it is true (my cat responds to thinks like 'kitty' cuz that what I call him... so he understands. Also my dog, when I spell his name to him 'M-A-X!' he knows it. Maybe because he recognnizes the 'x' sound, which would indicate understanding language.)


I will add that wolves (social pack animals) will also mate without the direct intent of procreation, and will even have same-sex relationships in larger packs. Higher apes also have similar habits. As to whether this is mutually enjoyable, however, is up for debate. I think there is a certain amount of pleasure involved, or there would be no reason (because of the obvious biologically "unneeded" same-sex drive these animals sometimes exhibit).

Language? African Grey Parrots exhibit the ability to reason and comprehend language at the intelligence level of a 4 year old child. They UNDERSTAND, not just mimic, if their environment is nurturing of that understanding.

I don't think fish feel pain the same way we do, or even that higher mammals do. Their brain is not wired anywhere near the same, and is much less complex. This would lead me to believe that the biological imperative to procreate is the dominating reason they do it, not because they "get off" on it.... Most aquarium species could care less if they had a mate, and most fish are not very picky about a mate when they do have one.

It might "do something for them", but I'm not sure it's anything more than instinct. After all, many fish breeds die after spawning. If you knew that having sex WOULD KILL YOU, do you think you'd do it just because it felt good?

[PredatorFish]

Some apes called Bonobos are very sexual. They have sex with any Bonobo at anytime they want. I do beleive that human females are the only females that can orgasim and that has to do with evolution/family structure. I studied that in an anthropology class but it is too long to explain all of the reasons why women orgasim. As far as fish feeling pain, I think that they do. If fish didn't feel pain how would they know to avoid things?

[pinballqueen]

Originally posted by PredatorFish
I do beleive that human females are the only females that can orgasim and that has to do with evolution/family structure. I studied that in an anthropology class but it is too long to explain all of the reasons why women orgasim.

Well, my only disagreement with this statement is that among higher apes, meaning chimpanzees, baboons, gorillas, etc., many of the same-gender sexual practices involve two females....why would this lesbianism occur if there were not pleasure involved?...

If we are referring to ANATOMICAL reasons, yes, the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens is the only one in which the female has a clitoris, NOT the only species capable of orgasm....these are mutually exclusive phenomena.

[carpguy]

How and to what extent other species think or are conscious is probably always going to be murky. There have been some language studies with animals like apes and parrots that suggest they can be taught to use language and linguistic concepts. Other species, like wolves and crows, are known to be able to solve problems and to apply learned concepts to other scenarios. They are known to not only learn, but also to teach. I don't know the extent of this kind of research, I've only read a little bit about it, but there seems to me to be a growing body of evidence that strongly suggests that at least other mammals and birds may be much more conscious than we'd realized. How much more? Who knows? Hard (maybe impossible) to say.

Pain (and pleasure) seem to be very old and fundamental parts of our brains. We know that we don't like pain (mostly) but the conscious knowing of that isn't in anyway a part of our experience of pain (or pleasure). We don't think pain, we feel it. Sensation greatly predates conciousness. These sensations are not new and are probably very common and similar in most of the higher animals. Single-celled organisms will react to stimuli. How far back do pain and pleasure go and how similarly are they experienced by different species? How is a fish's pain different from or similar to our own? Who knows? Hard (maybe impossible) to say. I think there is good evidence that they do feel pain.

Sexual activity for non-procreative purposes is not unique to humans. Its not that uncommon among higher animals. Is it recreational, performed because it's pleasurable? Who knows? Hard to say, but where it doesn't happen its probably true that pleasure is not a significant component of the sexual experience, and I think this is probably the case with fish. Where it does happen is it because its pleasurable or because there are other forces at work? I think with humans there are clearly other things going on besides plain ol' wanting to feel good. Even if you can sit down and interview your subjects, trying to understand their motivations in this area is a dicey business. Pleasure is probably a part of the sexual experience for a lot of animals. To what extent? Hard to say, but I think the best evidence suggests that it is unusually significant in ours.