The same is true for monkeys and apes, researchers say

Oct 29, 2013 19:46 GMT  ·  By

It turns out that humans, apes and monkeys are way smarter than anyone would have guessed.

And not because they have figured out that using tools and living in fairly large groups can only improve one's quality of life, but because they have evolved to spot snakes (and freak out whenever this happens) in a split second.

Researchers with the University of California, Davis say that, after showing two macaques born and raised on a farm in Japan several pictures, they found that certain areas in their brains fired up way faster when the monkeys were looking at the image of a snake than they did when the animals were shown something else, even images of aggressive macaque faces.

Interestingly enough, this happened regardless of the fact that the monkeys had never seen an actual snake in their lives.

The specialists suspect that the brains of humans and apes behave in the same manner whenever a snake happens to be around, and that this is because primates have evolved to have a sense of vision and brains able to detect and react to snakes quickly.

Needless to say, this adaptation served to up these species' survival chances.

“The results show that the brain has special neural circuits to detect snakes, and this suggests that the neural circuits to detect snakes have been genetically encoded. I don't see another way to explain the sensitivity of these neurons to snakes except through an evolutionary path,” researcher Lynne Isbell said.

“We're finding results consistent with the idea that snakes have exerted strong selective pressure on primates,” she added.