Snakes have no external ears. They are mostly deaf to airborne sounds. They do have an inner ear (like humans), which helps with balance. You can shout/scream as loud while walking in the bush but it simply wont scare a snake away.
Don't wave things at them because that may agitate them. Don't try to push them off the trail with a stick – that's often how people do get bitten. Shouting won't scare them off either - they don't have external ears – but they can “hear” really well by picking up vibrations in their jaw and bones.
Are snakes sensitive to noise? No, snakes are not sensitive to noise compared to human beings or other animals. Although snakes do have ears, their ears are designed very differently and are not nearly as sensitive as our ears are.
Movements and Vibrations
The best method to scare them is to make fast movements. A lot of times, just chasing the snake away works very well. Another thing to try is to stomp hard on the ground. The snake will not hear the noise, but it will get scared off by the vibrations the stomping makes.
Garlic and onions not only work when planted in your yard, but they also work as a natural snake repellent product as they both contain sulfonic acid which is known to repel snakes. Chop up both garlic and onions and mix them with rock salt. Sprinkle the mixture around your yard to repel snakes.
Strong and disrupting smells like sulfur, vinegar, cinnamon, smoke and spice, and foul, bitter, and ammonia-like scents are usually the most common and effective smells against snakes since they have a strong negative reaction to them.
Although snakes don't typically display physical reactions to things that annoy them, small irritants such as repeated loud noises can stress them and eventually lead to major health problems.
This is about the amplitude of a loud voice. The snakes in our study responded to this sound, and many significantly so. So it's probably safe to say snakes can hear people speaking loudly or screaming.
Natural repellents including sulfur, clove and cinnamon oil, and vinegar may help repel snakes. Pour these substances around the perimeter of your property, any place you have noticed snake activity.
Snakes have an elevated sense of smell and are ultra-sensitive to odours and fumes. One smell they particularly dislike is smoke.
Tips to stay safe around snakes
There are 105 species of land-based snakes and 37 marine snakes in Australia. Snakes respond to movement more than vibrations. Stomping your feet won't scare them away.
Ammonia Repellent: Snakes have sensitive noses and don't like the smell of ammonia, so spraying it around the perimeter of your property can help keep them away. Epsom Salt: Sprinkling Epsom salt around your home or garden will create a strong odor snakes won't want to come close to.
For example, exposure therapy may start with something less scary, like a picture of a cartoon snake. Eventually, you might be asked to imagine a real snake or look at a live snake in a cage. Through increasing exposure, you may learn to manage ophidiophobia.
Most snakes are active at night because that's when they prefer to hunt. However, there are a few snakes that are strictly active during the day. For example, coachwhips actually like very hot temperatures and are very fast. They will hunt lizards, snakes, small mammals, and birds and their eggs.
If they can't slither away, they'll employ defensive maneuvers: a hognose snake might play dead, a rattlesnake might rattle, a cottonmouth might open wide to appear scary.
Hike during the cooler parts of the day. Snakes like to warm their bodies in the sunshine. Hiking in the evening or early in the morning helps you avoid their favorite part of the day.
While snakes have an extraordinary sense of smell, they cannot smell fear. They cannot comprehend someone's emotions, but they can interpret a person's or prey's body language. Fearful body language may be interpreted by the snake as aggression.
Avoid approaching any snake you cannot positively identify as a safe species. If you hear the warning rattle, move away from the area and do not make sudden or threatening movements in the direction of the snake. Remember rattlesnakes do not always rattle before they strike!
The truth is, snakes have a strong sense of smell, which they use to find accessible food sources. You can take advantage of this trait by using scents they dislike, such as cinnamon, clove oil, and eugenol. These are the only scents recommended by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to repel snakes.
Be Snake Aware
Snakes like to curl up in dark, quiet places during the heat of the day. Typically in the early morning and evenings, snakes will become more active.
We have a tendency to humanize animals. We associate feelings, emotions and traits to animals that we ourselves experience. Snakes can certainly be provoked and become hostile, but they don't get angry as you and I understand it. There are reasons why snakes bite, but anger is not one of them.
The scientists observed Pseudonaja responding to sound by demonstrating jaw drops and hisses, while Aspidites showed behaviours like periscoping and head jerking.
No. The charm has nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the charmer waving a pungi, a reed instrument carved out of a gourd, in the snake's face. Snakes don't have external ears and can perceive little more than low-frequency rumbles.
A typical tv doesn't have the best sound, the way you hear movies in a theatre, but if you're using a fancy home theatre set-up, that could stress a snake much more- just as loud music on a stereo can. It depends on how close the sound source is, but even WE can feel the vibrations on glass tanks or plastic enclosures.
Most snakes examined in the study are sensitive to UV light, which allows them to see well in low light conditions. For light to reach the retina and be absorbed by the pigments, it first travels through the lens of the eye. Snakes with UV-sensitive visual pigments therefore have lenses that let UV light though.