No, we don’t have an innate fear of snakes

The researchers compared the visual detection abilities of snakes to those of macaques, crocodiles, felines and birds of prey. To conclude, no: primates do not spot snakes any faster than other predators.

Contrary to popular belief, we primates have not developed an innate phobia of snakes. Hervé Poirier, editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Epsilon explains why.

franceinfo: The dominant scientific theory is that we don’t have an innate fear of snakes, does that mean?

Hervé Poirier: It is the first animal phobia, before spiders and mice: ophiophobia, phobia of snakes, affects 1 to 3% of the population. And now there is an abundant scientific literature that supports the idea that this fear is actually genetically encoded.

Yes, according to a theory formalized in 2006 by American anthropologist Lynne Isbell, our brain is wired to fear snakes. Primates have evolved over tens of millions of years to more quickly detect what would be their worst predator, thanks to a specific visual detection circuit…

And would that be false?

Yes. Specialists from the National Museum of Natural History, the University of Strasbourg and the University of Clermont-Auvergne have just dispelled this idea. First, they highlighted the bias of the arguments.

For primates, snakes have always been less dangerous than panthers, lions, hyenas or birds of prey. And when snakes feel in danger, they often send out signals that signal their presence: they ring, hiss. Which doesn’t fit the theory. Also, culturally, snakes do not have nearly such a negative image. They are often associated with knowledge, the creation of the world, water…

But the scientists mainly pointed out the weaknesses of the work measuring the speed of detection of snakes in primates, the basis of the whole theory. And they decided to seriously reconsider the problem.

how did they do it?

The experiment was carried out by Karl Zeller in Strasbourg on 25 macaques of two different species through more than 400,000 tests. The protocol consists of measuring the speed with which they notice, among other things, an image of “intruders”, these images represent animals or simple geometric shapes. For example, displaying an image of a snake between three images of felines. Or a picture of a cat between three pictures of snakes.

The tests were done, patiently. And the conclusion is clear: macaques do not spot snakes faster than other predators. Which ruins the whole theory. It is possible that Lynne Isbell, its founder, is herself ophiophobic. But that is no reason to try to convince us to become them. No, we primates do not have an atavistic fear of snakes.