It occurs to me that getting to know more about common garter snakes might be a good way to treat snake phobias. This fellow shown here is the Eastern subspecies; there also is a Maritime subspecies in Maine, which is darker and often lacks that yellow stripe.
Garter snakes are bright-eyed; seem to have a slight smile on their faces; aren’t harmful to humans and can help get rid of nasty things in the garden. They’re also fun to watch when they disappear amazingly fast by repeatedly coiling into an S and uncoiling. (One report says garter snakes have been clocked at 4 miles-per-hour.) But, of course, just that slithering can give some people the creeps.
Reportedly, at its most extreme, snake fear develops into ophidiophobia, an irrational and harmful condition that can cause panic attacks at the mere thought of a snake. Others, perhaps a majority of western hemisphere people, just have an inexplicable aversion to snakes. (And maybe to spiders, but that’s a slightly different story.)
The research suggests that many humans fear snakes due to a combination of evolved survival instincts, cultural conditioning and the snakes’ non-mammalian habits, including slithering and rearing up and striking at those the snake, itself, fears.
Our earliest ancestors apparently learned the hard way that some snakes could be deadly and that it often was difficult to distinguish between the killing kind and the kindly ones. Practicality dictated that it was safest to avoid all of them in those days (unless you were starving).
This avoidance response allegedly created a fear instinct that may have become virtually “hard-wired” in many primate descendants. As societies developed, religious and cultural portrayals of snakes as embodiments of evil, danger and damnation reinforced the aversion.
But, take another look at this amazing fellow who was slithering out of fear as fast as he could to get away from me. Do you really think he’s destined to harm us or be the devil’s messenger?
I don’t suggest that you try to pick up the next garter snake you stumble over. (If you did, you’d likely get harmlessly bitten and smeared with an awful-smelling musk discharge.) My thought is maybe you could try not to worry about yourself when you see one. You and that snake have far more important things to worry about.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 1, 2026; sex assumed.)