Snakes often bite their prey when feeding, but occasionally, they sink their fangs into human flesh. Slightly more men than woman were scared of snakes in Britain - 20% to 19%. One animal psychologist, Dr Roger Mugford, said: "This is a reaction common to all primates. If you were to show a model snake to a chimp or an orang-utan in a zoo they would run away in terror. This goes back to the when we lived in the jungle as cavemen."