No such difference that warrants the treatment we give them. Sure, they can't read, they don't speak a sophisticated language etc. How does that influence their capability to feel pain? Boredom? Fear? Isolation? Saying "animals are just animals" really makes me wonder, what do you think makes us so different that we don't deserve to be subjugated to physical and mental torture?

No, they're trying to make you tell us what the moral difference is between humans and animals. YOU'RE the one saying they are not the same. We are asking, why? "Because I'm smart" is not an answer. If you can convince yourself that an individual with obvious interests, desires, and emotions is not even in the same moral category as a human that you like, you can EASILY convince yourself that any human being with interests, desires and emotions is ALSO not in the same moral category. This isn't a hypothetical, this is something people do every day. So we'll accept that humans all have the same moral worth, but you still have to explain why animals have so little moral worth, that they way they taste is more important than their lives.