I will say that I have often blamed this exact thing on so many peoples' fear of snakes (this and the book of genesis). I think that humans have a hated/fear of snakes from something that we picked up along our evolutionary lineage. If I am about to step on a snake when I see it (walking outdoors), regardless of the species, I will definitely jump a few feet in the air and move the opposite direction after which my heart will be racing and my respiratory rate elevated. This is completely instinctive, especially since I have personally worked with over a dozen species of snakes in herpetoculture and in the field in a herpetological context while in college where I worked with a number of species including two species of hots. It is very cool then, to me at least, to see an article with some actual research behind it that backs up my assumptions!
