Ophidiophobia or ophiophobia is a particular type of specific phobia, the abnormal fear of snakes. Fear of snakes is sometimes called by a more general term, herpetophobia, fear of reptiles and/or amphibians. The word comes from the Greek words “ophis” (ὄφις) which refers to snake and “phobia” (φοβία) meaning fear. An ophidiophobe would not only fear them when in live contact but also dreads to think about them or even see them on video or in pictures. About a third of adult humans are ophidiophobic, making this the most common reported phobia.
Fear of snakes is one of the most common phobias, yet many people have never seen a snake in person. So how is this fear generated?
The idea is that throughout evolutionary history, humans that learned quickly to fear snakes would have been at an advantage to survive and reproduce. Psychologists found that both adults and children could detect images of snakes among a variety of non-threatening objects more quickly than they could pinpoint frogs, flowers or caterpillars. The researchers think this ability helped humans survive in the wild.
