``Most urbanites are terrified of snakes and will kill them on sight. But, they are actually the most timid creatures - retiring, misunderstood and defensive,'' she said familiarising the audience at the Rotary Club of Bombay (Andheri East) meet on Saturday. Her talk was part of a series of lectures aimed at dispelling misconceptions about snakes and ways to handle snakebites.

Singh holds a Ph.D in herpetology and has a world record by spending 45 days in a room with 8,800 snakes in Dubai in May 1989.

"The common cobra, the krait, the Russel's viper and the saw-scaled viper are four out of India's 250 species that are poisonous.'' Thus snake bites are divided into venomous and non-venomous. Inthe former, where the two fang marks will be visible, a tourniquet must be applied three inches from the marks and the victim must be taken to a doctor for an antidote.

It is important to care for non-venomous snake bites too because secondary infections often prove fatal. Symptoms, which manifest in 15-30 minutes, include acute stomachaches, nausea, dizziness, blindness, headaches and vomiting.

``No snake in the world can kill you instantly,'' she says emphasising the need for quick treatment. The victim must keep not panic or get agitated and stay as still as possible because a higher metabolic rate will increase the flow of venom through the blood stream. Panic causes 99 per cent of the deaths. ``I have been bitten 47 times, thrice fatally but I am still alive because I kept my wits about me,'' she says, adding that she had been in a six-by-six enclosure with an angry cobra and emerged unscathed.

``Snakes will only attack when they are threatened or provoked. It is always human error that results intheir attack,'' she emphasised and pointed out that there are four kinds of snakes bites: provoked bites when an irritated snake bites the person who is teasing it, an accidental bite when a snake bites a person who steps on it, a dry bite by a cornered snake and without venom and the most dangerous is the survival bite to those come in the way of a preying snake. Treatment depends on the kind of bite as the quantity of venom differs.

As popular movies would have us believe, snakes do not seek revenge. ``They lack the capacity to handle as intense an emotion as revenge," Singh says.