Primates vs Snakes (An Evolutionary Arms Race)

The Snake Detection Hypothesis proposes that the ability to quickly spot and avoid snakes is deeply embedded in primates, including us - an evolutionary consequence of the danger snakes have posed to us over millions of years.

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[KRJayster]

I would say that, technically speaking, primates have definitely won the “arms“ race with snakes.

[whangadude]

Lived in New Zealand my whole life, we have absolutely no snakes at all here, yet I've still been frightened by snake shaped things in the grass out of the corners of my eyes on occasions. Glad to know it's a hardwired thing.

[MrJethroha]

I feel like lots of animals feel this way about snakes. I've seen horses, pigs, and cats absolutely freak out/attack snakes on sight, and even just vaguely snake like shapes trigger them.

[AdamTehranchiYT]

Didn't know that venom spitting was (in evolutionary terms) a recent innovation. Also, the arms race is still on going rattlesnakes are loosing their iconic warnings since humans overreact.

[thenewkalpa]

I've heard about all the myths of humankind revolving around snakes. Snakes are such a well-known danger to humans that snakes make a prominent trope for antagonists, even today. Snakes are like our evolutionary siblings, in a way.

[shrimpisdelicious]

I wonder if this is also why snakes end up playing huge roles in many different mythologies around the world. There's Apophis, the giant snake who continually battles Ra, the feathered serpent in Meso-American mythology, and the snake who tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, to name a few.

[phillyphilly]

Living in trees probably was a stronger cause of primates' excellent vision. Especially depth perception. Miscalculating the distance from one branch to another would usually have fatal consequences. Although some contemporary primate species are now terrestrial, all of them were arboreal in the past.

[elliottcoleman]

I actually did see a snake while on a trail, and this explains my extreme reaction to it haha. I love snakes, and no snakes really scare me at all. This one however, which was a harmless ring necked snake, slithered just under my feet while I was working on the trail. As soon as it entered the corner of my eye, I FREAKED out. It quickly went under some cover where I couldn't see it, but once the shock wore off, my curiosity took over. I don't really understand why I freaked out so badly, but maybe that snake was just enough to push my little primate snake alert button in my brain haha

[slashbert]

They left out some really awesome findings about spitting cobras. Like their ability to predict where a target is heading and shoot where it will be, like a trained sniper. Or how they seem to recognise faces and eyes, so they won't just spit at any old object and waste their venom.

[redslate]

This must also apply to cats as well. There's any number of reaction videos showing cats encountering vaguely snake-shaped objects (including cucumbers).

[melvinshine]

Venom spitting evolving as a specific counter to hominids could explain why that same adaptation never arose in snakes in Oceania or the New World. Snakes in those areas have had to deal with humans for a far shorter amount of time.

[devilslamp]

That sensible chuckle when he says "danger noodle." This man is a treasure.

[arthurmalvavisco]

I used to work with venomous snakes.
As a biologist in training, I always loved snakes and other reptiles - I find them misunderstood silly critters.
And Yet, working up close with rattlesnakes and lanceheads, I would frequently find myself mesmerized, near paralized, by the uncanny beauty of the largest specimens. By their unblinking eyes that so frequently looked like molten star cores. I worked daily with over 400 snakes for 3 years, and sometimes my heart would race as if it were my first time.
Yes, I love them and they indeed are silly little critters, but instincts are a powerful things, and we humans certainly got them.

[AT-AT-AT-AT]

That explains the fact that almost every ancient culture has the figure of the dragon in their mythos. The dragon being the mix of our historical main predators (snakes+birds+felines).

[DinoJake]

Has someone repeated this experiment with spiders? Given how common arachnophobia is, I'm wondering if a fear of spiders is as instinctive as our fear of snakes.

[dafttool]

I saw this in action in real life. At the zoological park I used to work at, we bottle raised an orphaned baby rhesus monkey. We also had a stuffed rattlesnake in our office. The baby rhesus was TERRIFIED of the stuffed rattlesnake the instant he saw it, even though he had zero previous experience with snakes. We eventually had to put away the stuffed snake so he wouldn’t get freaked out by it.

[planescaped]

I have one of those segmented wooden snakes with cord running down the middle of them, every time I put it on the ground in front of my cats they jump up, ears back and go into danger mode. Very few snakes where we live, and none of my cats have ever seen one before, yet they react to a believable looking toy snake in a very distinct way. A kind of curious dread and fear response that is a lot different than the confused rage potatoes with 4 toothpick legs left in unexpected places gives them.

Methinks its more than primates...

[HAROLD-CORE]

I love that people are still doing testing like this. I am always amazed at the primate reaction to snakes. No matter the continent, primates always behave the same. My experience with prosimian reactions to snakes is limited, but I seem to remember the same thing from my visits to new world countries in my youth.

[CavemanSynthesizer]

I'd really like to see an analysis done on the co-evolution of snakes and ladders.

[iainclark]

I occasionally encounter adders at work and I definitely notice how quickly I spot and react to them compared to any other camoflaged animal. It's an uncanny feeling that the freeze response happens before I even consciously process the fact that it's a snake. What a wonderful thing it is that we can actually directly experience the adaptions this video is talking about. I love seeing them and have no fear of them, but it's instant freeze, assess and back off every time.