Sketchbook Snakes...

I've never considered myself a fan of snakes, but current project asked me to look at photos I had taken back at Dillman's in spring past. I believe identification of my photos include a northern brown water snake often confused for a water moccasin and a northern ribbon snake or garter snake. I do have that common fear or dislike anyway of the cold reptile family, you will not catch me petting one in the children's zoo. Bad enough that I've felt the garter slither under my bare feet on a few occasions. But with a little look see, I've come to understand that in a region of the brain known as the pulvinar, certain neurons respond only to these legless animals. Signals from life direct our attention quickly to particular objects and the suggestion is these snake sensing neurons are a legacy of our distant primate past when snakes posed a great threat to our survival. So the fear of snakes stems from perceptual bias, people recognize snakes faster than other objects in the environment. All said and done, I prefer to see them at the distance that I originally photographed them at, about thirty feet below the seating area in craggy area of lake that we would not intentionally cross without purpose.