From phobic to fan – snakes alive!

PHOBIAS are very weird, so it’s not surprising that part of their diagnosis is “irrational”.

When I was about 5, my bed turned into a pit of snakes. I’m sure I had never even seen a snake before. So began a long life of ophidiophobic nightmares.

Once, every grain of bath salt turned into a writhing viper.

Many, many times it was a wide open field I HAD to cross and, like a molehill-pitted lawn, piles of snakes lay in wait.

There were many other versions of these weekly terrifying intruders. Oddly, not one ever bit me. On regular (real-life) hiking trips, my eyes were peeled for that one lurking in wait. That fear was eased a bit when I caught sight of one quickly moving away from us.

About 30 years later, I let someone I trusted and who kept snakes put a brown house snake on a trembling, outstretched arm.

Just to the elbow. It felt amazing – those powerful muscles clearly felt through my quivering ones.

Slowly, their beauty worked its magic and I wasn’t alarmed when Fluffy escaped his confines, once, to cuddle in my knitting basket.

Now, searching for birds with binoculars in my jungle garden, I became anxious I would spot an unknown visitor in the canopy. Serendipitously, Johan Marais’s new edition of A Complete Guide to the Snakes of Southern Africa was sent to me for review.

This book is not going on the shelf – it’s accompanying me on every stakeout. I just wish I’d had it years ago to better get a handle on the terror and reduce it to the current level of healthy respect.

These incredible reptiles have had centuries of bad press and phobic or ill-informed humans have encroached on their habitats and often reacted with deadly force to their presence.

This complete guide, as it suggests, is packed with information: habitats, distribution, behaviours, venom types, reproduction and food.

What it does particularly well, through amazing photographs (thanks for that, but some are just too close-up) and diagrams, is give clear key identification markers for each of the 176-odd species in the region.

Their lengths are illustrated against a human arm or body, and the scales – shape and pattern – and colour ariations are brilliant.

Each entry has a box on bite symptoms and medical treatment, when (rarely) required.

It also provides websites where people can find local snake handlers to remove snakes safely, a free app that only shows snakes found in your vicinity to help identify them, and free posters that identify those found in your region.

Educating people about the important ecological role these creatures fulfil, and dispelling the many myths around them, is vital to ensure their survival and prevent us from being overrun by rodents.

It’s a wonderful, layman-friendly and safe window into these awesome creatures’ lives.

Of course, I immediately went through it to see what lived near my house so I would be able to tell which one it was if it came inside to feast on Gary the Geckos.

And I still check the loo before sitting down and put the passage light on so I don’t step on the one “waiting” for me. Some phobias just never die completely.

¡ The book is available in English and

Afrikaans and sells for R450.