It's one thing for carnivores to be comfortable with animals being killed for the sake of a tasty meal, but it's fair to assume that most wouldn't want to actually watch an animal being killed right in front of them. Bit weird when it lands on your plate, eh?
Well, spare a thought for this defiant crayfish, who has no intention of becoming anyone's next meal.
You can see the crustacean resting on the side of a bowl where its friends and family are likely perishing in a boiling broth. This is some Game of Thrones shit in real life - but, like, in the crayfish world.
Determined not to die, it makes the desperate move to amputate its own claw, which appears to have already succumbed to damage from the soup.
The video was reportedly posted onto Weibo, a Chinese social media website, with the poster writing: "I let him live. I already took him home and am raising him in an aquarium."
Aw. Well, at least this story has a very small silver lining.
Interestingly, there's a big debate about whether crustaceans can feel pain. In 2012, American philosopher Gary Varner tried to argue that if a being doesn't react in the same way as humans to stimuli that we'd deem painful (sticking a pin through your finger, for instance), then it doesn't experience pain.
In his findings, he found that fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and cephalopods (i.e. octopus, squid, etc) all experience what's largely considered pain, whereas crustaceans did not.
This study mainly looked at these different species having similar anatomy - like a brain, nociceptors (a neuron that responds to threats) and natural painkiller within the body - and combined it with a similar response to pain that a human would have.
But that's not to say that crustaceans don't react to noxious stimuli, as crayfish have peripheral nerve fibres that respond to things that could be painful.
Advocates for Animals said in 2005: "The likelihood that decapod crustaceans can feel pain [which] is supported by the fact that they have been shown to have opioid receptors and to respond to opioids (analgesics such as morphine) in a similar way to vertebrates."
In the same year, the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety said that it's likely that lobsters don't feel pain because their central nervous system is basic AF. It added that when a lobster reacts violently to boiling water, that's more or less just a reflex rather than due to being in pain.
Either way, we hope that our one-clawed crayfish pal is now living its best life.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Viral, Food, Interesting, Weird