ABSTRACT
Snakes have attracted less research than have many other kinds of animals, and that is especially true for field-based research on ecology and behavior. This chapter reviews the early life of author Rick Shine, and his encounters with snakes in eastern Australia during his teenage years. It describes captures of pythons and venomous snakes, and discusses historical shifts in public attitudes to snakes, and in knowledge about these misunderstood animals. Until recent years, the view that snakes are primitive, inefficient creatures was widespread in academia as well as among the general public, discouraging research on reptiles in general and snakes in particular.
