Snake coloration does not influence children’s detection time

ABSTRACT

Although snakes play key roles in the functioning of various ecosystems, they have been among the most persecuted groups of animals. To enhance conservation efforts, we employed research on perceptions about snakes differing in body coloration. We investigated the bright coloration hypothesis, which suggests that bright (aposematic) coloration triggers fear in humans due to an evolved aversion for aposematic signals. The sample was 77 Slovak preschool children. The detection times for aposematically and cryptically colored snakes were similar. The only exception was that aposematically colored snakes were detected quicker among cryptic non-snake animals than among aposematic non-snake animals. These results provide mixed support for the bright coloration hypothesis. This suggests that snakes, unlike non-snake animals, capture visual attention irrespective of their color, which can be utilized in selection of flagship species to increase conservation efforts.

KEYWORDS:

• Fear
• conservation
• evolution
• human
• wild animals

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Editor, Associate Editor, and the anonymous referees for their valuable comments and improvements of earlier versions of this manuscript. This study was funded by grant VEGA no. 1/0286/20 and 12/TU/2018.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in the studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committees and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agentúra Ministerstva Školstva, Vedy, Výskumu a Športu SR [1/0286/20]; Trnava University [12/TU/2018].