The Fear of the Unknown is the root of almost all other fears, granted there are exceptions as there is in most things but a majority of fears have their roots placed firmly in the unknown factor.
For instance take someone who has a fear of bugs, if you asked them why they fear bugs they will usually respond with something vague or unclear something along the lines of ‘Its their legs’ or ‘Its their eyes’. The reason for this squeamishness and general fear of these usually harmless creatures is because of the unknown enigma factor of there workings. Because the person who fears them doesn’t have six legs or four eyes it makes it very difficult to familiarize yourself with the bug making them an unknown and therefore scary.
Think about it most animal fears are directed at the animals that are most different from ourselves like birds and bugs because of how different they are making them more of an unknown and so scary. For instance one of my biggest fears is something giant swimming under me wile at sea, but it is not the being eaten I am afraid of. It is the unknownness of this imagined leviathan that scares me the most, the sheer terror of being at the mercy of a pure unknown that gets my skin crawling.
thepjpenguin 