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No wonder mammals are afraid everything's trying to kill them and think everything's poisonous.

• nomel 4y ago
  There's a theory that snakes pushed the evolution of our visual cortex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_detection_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_detection_theory
  • munificent 4y ago
    Tangential: I spent a lot of my youth wanting to be a herpetologist and traipsing around swamps catching snakes. Many many many hours hunting for snakes hiding in the underbrush. I noticed over time that my visual system would get into this weird state where it was like I wasn't actively focusing on anything, but I could pick up any tiny motion or snake-like shape anywhere in my visual field. It's a really strange but gratifying feeling.
    • nomel 4y ago
      Yeah, same here, along with the sound of them rustling through the grass! There were many times where we would be walking on a trail, I would stop, and say "there's a snake over here" and pull a snake out from the cover of grass! Its always made me wonder how members of indigenous tribes, that hunt and gather, perceive the world.
      • munificent 4y ago
        > I would stop, and say "there's a snake over here" and pull a snake out from the cover of grass! Same! It's always weird when I know there's a snake there even before I have consciously recognized that I've seen it.
• aussiesnack 4y ago
  Our biggest animal dangers here are humans, horses, and cows. In that order.