Hooding cobras can get ahead of other snakes in the ability to evoke human fear

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11310%2F25%3A10489877" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11310/25:10489877 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=Mp_iU9RUKL" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=Mp_iU9RUKL</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00114-024-01952-2" target="_blank" >10.1007/s00114-024-01952-2</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Hooding cobras can get ahead of other snakes in the ability to evoke human fear

Original language description

Fear of snakes is common not only in humans but also in other primates. Consequently, snakes are salient stimuli associated with prioritized attention, early detection and emotional significance. This has been interpreted as an adaptive evolutionary response of the primate brain to a risk of envenoming by a hidden snake. However, the struggle between mammals and snakes is not one-sided. Humans and carnivores regularly kill snakes, and thus snakes develop deterring defensive behaviour that may directly evoke enhanced fear. Here, we show that snakes depicted in threatening posture evoked on average more fear than those in resting posture. Significantly, African (Somali) and European (Czech) respondents considerably agreed on the relative fear elicited by various snakes. Nonetheless, not all defensive postures are equally efficient. Threatening cobras were perceived as top fear-evoking stimuli, even though most of them are not considered very frightening in resting posture. This effect can be attributed to their conspicuous hooding posture which evolved into an efficient warning signal for mammalian predators. Our result demonstrates that cobras are more effective than other snakes in the ability to evoke human fear by a simple behavioural display-hooding. This can be primarily explained by the behavioural evolution of cobras which successfully exploited pre-existing cognitive mechanisms of mammals. Whether human ancestors cohabiting with deadly venomous cobras further improved their fear response to hooding is uncertain, but likely.

Czech name

—

Czech description

—

Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10613 - Zoology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA20-21608S" target="_blank" >GA20-21608S: A cross-cultural study of response to snakes in the cradle of humankind: Is fear evolutionarily conserved?</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

The Science of Nature : Die Naturwissenschaften

ISSN

0028-1042

e-ISSN

1432-1904

Volume of the periodical

112

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

DE - GERMANY

Number of pages

13

Pages from-to

1

UT code for WoS article

001372546500001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85211187973