Octopus, crabs and lobsters feel pain - this is how we found out

By Alexandra Schnell, Research Fellow in Comparative Psychology, Darwin College, University of Cambridge
Andrew Crump, Postdoctoral Research Officer, London School of Economics and Political Science
Jonathan Birch, Associate Professor of Philosophy, London School of Economics and Political Science

Does a lobster feel pain when you pop it in a pot? The UK government asked us to find out.

We were commissioned to find out the likelihood of sentience – the capacity to have feelings, such as pain and pleasure – in two groups of invertebrate animals: the cephalopod molluscs (including octopuses, cuttlefishes and squids) and decapod crustaceans (including lobsters, crabs and prawns). We found strong and diverse evidence of sentience in both. And our…

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