Can Snakes Recognize Us as Humans?

Humans are not of any animal species.

Humans are not and never have been animals but were created in the image of God and by God personally.

Do Snakes Recognize Humans?

I don't think snakes have much of a talent for recognizing or classifying mammals. At best, they can judge 'That little mammal looks like he’d be good to eat—yum' or 'That big mammal looks dangerous—better slither away or bite him.'

What Do Snakes Recognize?

Snakes recognize you as prey or not prey and dangerous or not dangerous. They know a human is too big to be prey outside of a few of the big constrictors versus children. Therefore, if you get bitten by a snake, it's because it senses you are a danger. Leave snakes alone, and this is rarely a problem.

How Do Snakes Recognize Us?

Snakes aren’t taxonomists. They wouldn't think 'That’s a human' or 'That’s a cow.' They merely behave in different ways according to their genetics and instinct, and snake species vary in temperament, particularly in aggression or defendiveness. Presumably, this has to do with the evolutionary history of their habitat and habits—what does the species eat, how many natural enemies does the species have, and what kind of prey they encounter.

Then, superimposed on this, is a certain degree of learning. From its experience, snakes at least some of them may come to differentiate the other large organisms in their environment: This one is harmless. This one is dangerous and might try to kill me. This one I don’t know—better be cautious, back away, or threaten it if necessary. This one I associate with warmth, food, fresh water, and gentleness.

How Do Snakes Detect Us?

Snakes smell with their tongues and I expect they’re probably odor generalists—sensitive across a broad spectrum of smells, not specialized to smell only a few things like an insect is. Conceivably to me, a pet snake might be able to distinguish its usual handler from other people by smell. Even if you're its usual handler, it may sense a difference between how you smell when you're just come in all sweaty and musty from yard work or tennis versus how you smell just out of a bath.

Snakes don’t have external ears and don’t hear airborne sounds very well. They have an inner ear connected to their lower jawbone and hear substrate-borne vibrations by holding their head against the substrate. I think it's questionable whether they could recognize an individual person by his or her voice but they might recognize your proximity by your footsteps. Even I know Diane and I sound very different in the way we walk around the house—differences in the vibration of the floor. If a snake lived with two people, one of whom brings food and water while the other stays more distant or is associated with rougher or more timid handling, it might learn to distinguish the approach of its caretaker from others.

Snake Vision: Good Enough but Not Enough?

Snake vision is good enough to stalk some prey and defend themselves. In evidence, some arboreal tree-climbing snakes visually stalk birds on branches, and a coiled snake on the ground, whether venomous or not, turns its head to you if you walk around it. Some snakes see better in the ultraviolet and infrared regions of the spectrum than we do. IR is sensed by pit organs in pythons and pit vipers not with their eyes. Most sites I’ve glanced at suggest their vision is too poor to tell one person from another.

Surprisingly, even cats reportedly can’t tell one person’s face from another but distinguish us more by how we smell, sound, and behave than by facial recognition.

There are some good stories from snake owners that you can find in the link below. If you want to know more, click for further reading.

Further Reading

Check out these resources for more information on snake behavior and recognition: