why are most people natively scared of tiny rodents and insects like cockroaches, rats, mice etc, even though they are order of magnitudes smaller than ourselves?

Question

Is this phenomenon prevalent in any other species?

In: Earth Science

Answer 1

Evolution. Just because you can beat them in a fight, doesn’t mean they can’t kill you. We’re afraid of animals that can kill us. You’re afraid of rats and roaches for the exact same reason you’re afraid of a grizzly bear.

Rats and roaches carry disease. Spiders and snakes are venomous. Mice and locusts eat all your food and/or spoil the local water by dying in it.

Consider two people: One of them avoids all these poisonous and/or disease-carrying animals, and kills them whenever they can. The other doesn’t care and lives among them. If person A has even *slightly* greater chance of being *slightly* healthier, over a million years this avoidance of those animals will be advantageous and will be selected for until it’s common in the population.