Stress curl: legit stress or just his version of a hide?

[Gizalba]

No such thing as stress in tarantulas...they dont feel emotions. What they are is uncomfortable in there environment/situation.

I am guessing by emotion you mean a conscious feeling. At risk of turning too philosophical I 'feel' like seeing as science doesn't understand consciousness in humans and how it is formed, there's no way we understand this in tarantulas with so little research on them, or know how much they 'feel' or what that even means for them. Personally I think both consciousness and feeling is a continuum and all we can assert is that tarantulas have far 'less' of that than us, or mammals, but we don't know how much less or how to measure when it has crossed into nothing.

For the purposes of being ethical and not causing harm I feel like it's safer for people to assume that the tarantula does feel something, even if this is one day proven wrong or we re-define feeling. So I personally don't have a problem with the term 'stress' being used in reference to tarantulas. The aim of using that term ends up the same: try to make it more comfortable/ less stressed. I would be scared that people may interpret 'no feeling, no stress' as meaning it doesn't matter what you do to the tarantula as it doesn't feel anything anyway.

Can something be uncomfortable without feeling it?

 

[goldenpumpkin]

People tend to regurgitate the same bad information or terms in the hobby as gospel. Tarantulas lack the ability to stress...They're uncomfortable. That's all the position is, they're unsure/uncomfortable at the moment. Try to change the community on that one will be nearly impossible. Don't even get me started on ICU's.

Oh boy now I'm curious as to what the deal is with ICUs lol

 

[goldenpumpkin]

Uncomfortable, possibly feels threatened

Sometimes they tuck themselves into a tight bunch. This is normal behavior.

If it is tucked like that all the time, that is not normal, and there is some form of stressor making it uncomfortable.

Does that make sense?

Yes it does, thanks for clarifying. So what I'm understanding is: the tucking is not a problem as long as it's not 24/7.

 

[goldenpumpkin]

I am guessing by emotion you mean a conscious feeling. At risk of turning too philosophical I 'feel' like seeing as science doesn't understand consciousness in humans and how it is formed, there's no way we understand this in tarantulas with so little research on them, or know how much they 'feel' or what that even means for them. Personally I think both consciousness and feeling is a continuum and all we can assert is that tarantulas have far 'less' of that than us, or mammals, but we don't know how much less or how to measure when it has crossed into nothing.

For the purposes of being ethical and not causing harm I feel like it's safer for people to assume that the tarantula does feel something, even if this is one day proven wrong or we re-define feeling. So I personally don't have a problem with the term 'stress' being used in reference to tarantulas. The aim of using that term ends up the same: try to make it more comfortable/ less stressed. I would be scared that people may interpret 'no feeling, no stress' as meaning it doesn't matter what you do to the tarantula as it doesn't feel anything anyway.

Can something be uncomfortable without feeling it?

Yeah I was kind of confused about that too because like you said, the aim of using that term is still the same. Just semantics ig