Ridge Runner Chronicles: Seeing That Snake Before He Sees You
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By Bill Hoagland
It is snake season again. And fittingly enough, I am reading another snake book, “Slither” by Stephan S. Hall. One of the issues discussed in the book is how some humans have the ability to see snakes and react without even thinking about it. I definitely fit into that category. Years ago, I was turkey hunting with a friend, Mark Naylor, on a trail on Shop Hollow Ridge, overlooking the Current River in the Missouri Ozarks. It was early dawn but still more dark than light. As we are walking side by side, I somehow spotted a copperhead coiled right where Mark was taking his next step and I instinctively shoved Mark to the side and he did not get bitten. To this day, I can still see that snake in my head. Since then, I have wondered from time to time how in the world I saw that snake in the dark and how I reacted so quickly without even thinking about it. This book answers that question and the answer may surprise you.
The leading researcher on this issue is Lynne Isbell, a primatologist at the University of California, Davis. In 1992, Isbell was walking in a Kenya jungle when she found herself face to face with a cobra, coiled and ready to strike. Without even realizing what she was seeing, she instinctively reacted by jumping back and she avoided getting bitten. This event made her question why we humans impulsively react to snakes so for the next 30 years, she has studied that issue by comparing how humans and other primates react to snakes. Her research can be found in her book, “The Fruit, The Tree, and The Serpent”.
Isbell, after studying the reactions of various primates, including humans, to snakes, came up with her “snake detection theory.” It runs like this. Primates millions of years ago were exposed to venomous snakes in Europe, Africa and Asia; primates in Central America and South America were not exposed to venomous snakes until millions of years later. Primates in Europe, Africa and Asia today display an involuntary reaction to snakes; primates in Central and South America apparently do not. This reflects a natural, evolutionary system for weeding out those primates (including humans) who learned to quickly spot venomous snakes and who survived, versus those primates who did not. She found that the primates in Europe, Africa and Asia developed a unique visual ability to immediately see snakes and to react without thinking. She said in these creatures, there are two visual pathways to the brain from the eyes; one is very fast and subconscious; the other is slower and registers in the conscious part of the brain.
What does this mean for you? It relates in part in our immediate, subconscious reaction to snakes; a revulsion without even thinking. It is genetic and goes back millions of years. You can learn to overcome it but not everyone can rid themselves of the uneasiness. So if you are someone who screams if you see a snake ten yards away, for example, and people are rolling their eyes at you, just tell them they are witnessing 60 million years of genetic evolution that can’t be avoided.
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■ Bill Hoagland has practiced law in Alton for more than 50 years, but he has spent more than 70 years hunting, fishing and generally being in the great outdoors. His wife, Annie, shares his love of the outdoor life. Much of their spare time is spent on their farm in Calhoun County. Bill can be reached at [email protected].
