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Terror, Courage, and the Little Red Snake

In May 2011, I set out to teach my biannual tropical ecology college class in the Peruvian rainforest, a course I had been leading for the past eight years. I took undergraduate and master’s students from Central Connecticut State University to the Amazonian lowlands to encounter the amazing biodiversity and to teach the methods of field ecology and the scientific process. Students designed and completed small original research projects on a variety of organismal groups, which included (depending on the year) mammals, birds, insects, plants, and reptiles and amphibians. In addition to experiencing the wonders of the rainforest, students were immersed in Peruvian culture, working with Peruvian scientists for their projects and living at a functioning research station with Peruvian workers and scholars.

For that year, we traveled to a remote field station known as Sachavacayoc Centre, in the Tambopata Province of southeastern Peru, which is on the western edge of the Amazon Basin. Sachavacayoc Centre was one of my favorite localities for this class because it is primarily a research station as opposed to many of the other stations in the region, which were mainly tourist facilities but also hosted researchers. The nearly pristine lowland rainforest at the site has an incredible diversity of plants and animals. For most of our visit, we were the only researchers there, and we felt like it was our own private oasis in the jungle. The accommodations were rustic, to say the least, with no electricity and brown drinking water that was pumped up from the river. But we had roofs over our heads, beds, mosquito nets, a basic laboratory, and a kitchen staff that prepared delicious local food. As there were no roads, we arrived by boat after a three-hour trip from the rainforest town of Puerto Maldonado. My students felt like they were nineteenth-century explorers experiencing uncharted territory and a new way of life for the first time.

As a herpetologist, I loved to expose my often all-too-sheltered students from Connecticut to exotic, scaly creatures such as lizards, snakes, and caimans. One of the things that has always fascinated me about the students—indeed, about people in general—is that so many are terrified of snakes, which research has documented as an innate fear shared by humans around the world. A common misconception I encounter is that all snakes are venomous. In fact, most snakes in the world do not produce venom. In South America, venomous snakes are quite uncommon, and one needs some luck to encounter one. Most of my students had never seen a snake in the wild, and if they had, it was likely a garter snake slithering quickly by in the woods near their New England homes.

Despite people’s trepidations about snakes, serpents also inspire fascination, as reflected by the sheer number of nature documentaries, sensational news stories, and horror movies that have been produced about snakes. During my 18-day class that summer, I searched tirelessly to find as many snakes as possible to show to the students. You might call me the anti–Indiana Jones. That year, my course was divided into students who studied (1) birds, (2) mammals, and (3) reptiles and amphibians, or herpetofauna. My herp students were more-or-less fearless, flipping over logs, crashing through the dense vegetation, and exploring oxbow lakes to find as many frogs, lizards, caimans, turtles, and snakes as they could. I had taught the herp students how to capture frogs, lizards, and snakes, taking care to disturb them as little as possible. Because of the seven species of highly venomous snakes found in the area (out of over 60 snake species), including bushmasters and coral snakes, my rule for the students was that no one was allowed to catch a snake unless they could recite its scientific name, or if the snake was primarily red. None of the five species of red snakes in the region is the slightest bit venomous or aggressive.

Late one night, while we were surveying for frogs, Andy, one of my graduate students, encountered a tiny red snake, Drepanoides anomalus, commonly called the Amazon Egg-Eater Snake or the Black-Collared Snake. He asked permission to capture it and gently lifted it from the ground. This relatively common species, which ranges throughout six South American countries, is about the least-threatening snake one could encounter, measuring up to only 50 cm and eating only lizard eggs. These snakes often hide their heads within their coils, as an ostrich buries its head in the sand, to protect themselves. I realized this would be the perfect snake for the mammal and bird group students to see, and hold, if they gathered the courage. We deposited the snake in a cloth bag for its journey back to the lodge and pulled it out the next morning after breakfast to show the students of the various teams and the local dining room workers.

As I taught the students a little about the snake’s biology, several students worked up the courage to touch the middle of the body of the snake. A few even volunteered to hold it. Like so many frightened people before them, the students were surprised by the smooth, nonslimy texture and enjoyed watching the snake tongue-flick to smell its surroundings.

Nicole, a 22-year-old petite undergraduate student studying mammals, who had always been driven to terror in the presence of snakes, decided that, right then and there, she would conquer her phobia and hold the snake. She held out her hand, and I gently placed the calm, coiled snake in it. Despite the snake being in her hand, she kept her eyes trained across the room out of the window, her head cocked back at over 90 degrees. It took me a few moments before I realized why she peered over her shoulder—Nicole could hold the snake as long as she did not see herself holding it. The tiny snake cooperated beautifully and did not move the entire time it was in her hand. Their mutual fear kept both the snake and Nicole very still.

After over a minute of holding the snake, I removed it from the student’s hand. Nicole was overjoyed. She told me that she had conquered her fear of snakes. She had accomplished something that she never thought she could, overcoming the fright that had been with her since childhood. She later remarked that the experience of holding the snake was one of the best moments of her trip—even more memorable than watching howler monkeys frolic, observing capybaras munching on river vegetation, or exploring the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu.

I’ve been teaching international biology courses for over 20 years at this point, helping students grow as scientists and as global citizens. After all this experience, I knew that my trips to the Amazon were important adventures in the students’ lives, but I never expected that one minute with a little red snake would be so transformative.