Quote Originally Posted by redshepherd View Post
I do think a phobia of snakes is innate, half the time... For some other people, the fear is learned through myths or whatever.

Just an example, I know for a fact that my mom has an innate phobia, even though she's really gotten used to all my snakes. If I'm holding one and haven't NOTIFIED her of their presence in my hands yet, and she walks into the room, she'll actually cry out and kind of jerk her arms up as a first reaction... And then she goes, "Oh, right.. It's just Cake... haha" or something a second later.

I don't personally have a phobia of them and have been genuinely interested in seeing wild snakes or pet snakes ever since I was a kid.
Yes. That's me! I need to be notified of their presence lol

I can't remember the name of the scientist - but they did studies showing primates different pictures while reading brain scans and found that there was definite instinctive 'RUN' reactions to snake pictures. Even when the snakes were 'hidden' in the pics. They were able to spot them quicker than other hidden objects. Except lemurs. No venomous snakes on madagascar...