People are struggling to find the snake hiding in this viral photo

Snakes might be high on people’s list of fears, but they’re actually pretty cool animals.

Did you know that snakes smell with their tongues? Or that they have hundreds of ribs? How about the fact that they shed their skin? As it turns out, snakes are also pretty good at camouflaging themselves, and this next picture proves just that.

Helen Bond Plylar, Ph.D student and snake enthusiast, sent the internet wild when she posted a picture of an apparent snake that was lurking unseen amongst a scattering of dead leaves.

Helen shared her picture on Twitter, along with the caption:

“Received this from a fellow HERper this morning. No caption needed, the task was implied: “can you spot the snake?”

The picture soon received over 21.6k likes and thousands of comments and retweets as people struggled to spot where the snake was hidden. Can you see it?

Received this from a fellow HERper this morning. No caption needed, the task was implied: “can you spot the snake?” 🐍 pic.twitter.com/oVkjOm8ufy

— Helen Bond Plylar🐍👩🏼‍🔬 (@SssnakeySci) April 23, 2017

The ability to camouflage helps a snake to stay alive while out in the wild, and apparently, “Many snakes use camouflage to conceal themselves from both prey and their own predators, making it very challenging to detect them.”

But it gets more interesting.

Research found that humans are extremely sensitive to snakes- so much so, that we’re much more likely to detect pictures of snakes more quickly than those of other animals.

The reason behind this is all to do with evolution. Back in the time when humans lived out in the wild, snakes were considered a danger to humans- especially those that were venomous. For that reason, humans are wired to detect pictures of snakes much more easily than other animals.

So essentially, if you’re having trouble spotting the snake, then as a caveman, you probably wouldn’t have done so great.

Many people took to the comments to express their frustration at the ‘spot the snake’ game.

“I’m staring at a pile of leaves, aren’t I?” One person wrote.

Another added:

“Should make this into a jigsaw. Excellent camouflage.”

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any harder!

Many people also claimed that the picture was edited to make the snake blend in more, but Helen assures us that it’s not!

We think we’ve left you in your misery for long enough. If you still can’t find the snake, then Helen has helpfully circled it in the picture below.

Some people responded to Helen’s picture by showing their own camouflaged snake pictures. If your brain can take anything else, then here they are:

I had the same kind of picture yesterday in Brazos Bend State Park. The one on the left is the zoom. The one on the right is no zoom. pic.twitter.com/x4Pluv5Vhx

— Gordon Morrison (@gordonmorrison) April 26, 2017