A study of an indigenous Agta Negrito tribe in the Philippines explores their encounters with reticulated pythons (Python reticulatus) and suggests genetics play a key role in the fear of snakes. The research, titled “Hunter–gatherers and other primates as prey, predators, and competitors of snakes,” was co-authored by anthropologist Thomas N. Headland, who has lived intermittently among the tribe since 1962. It documents python attacks on tribe members on Luzon Island.
Headland, an adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University with a Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii, interviewed 58 men and 62 women from the tribe. The study found that 15 men and one woman survived python attacks, while six fatal attacks occurred between 1934 and 1973, averaging about one incident every two to three years. The Agta Negrito people are small in stature, with adult males averaging under 100 pounds. This makes them comparable in size to wild pigs (weighing up to 130 pounds) that pythons prey on in the Philippine jungles, indicating the tribe could be part of the python’s diet. Both the tribe and pythons compete for the same food sources, such as wild pigs, monkeys, and deer. The Agta Negrito hunt and eat pythons but avoid other rainforest snakes. Headland stated, “The universal human fear of snakes, especially giant snakes, but also small snakes, is in my opinion mainly nature, not nurture; genetic.” He emphasized that this fear is present in all humans, including the Agta, and suggested neuroscientists should investigate this innate response further. Headland and co-author Harry W. Greene contributed data on Agta-python symbiosis, noting records of snakes preying on 26 non-human primate species and tracing this relationship back over a million years. Due to deforestation and modern cultural influences, such data is now harder to collect. Anthropologist Lynne Isbell of the University of California, Davis, described the snake-primate dynamic as an evolutionary arms race, where improved human eyesight and intellect may have driven snakes to develop better camouflage.The tribe’s interaction with the python probably indicates a complex relationship between early humans and snakes, the paper states, a relationship that may explain a fear of snakes by humans today.
“Granting that mid-20th century Agta were in no general sense primitive, our data quantify a high potential for snake predation on people similar in size and hunter–gatherer lifestyle to prehistoric hominins,” the authors state in the paper.