There is a high demand for economic screening instruments quickly assessing specific mental diagnoses in both therapy and research. Regrettably, evaluated German short-screening instruments measuring snake anxiety are not available. Therefore, we translated a short English self-judgment instrument addressing snake anxiety (Schlangenangstaspekte-Fragebogen SANA: Aspects of Snake Anxiety Questionnaire) and developed an even shorter screening instrument (Schlangenangstscreening, SCANS) along the DSM-IV specific phobia criteria to determine their reliability and validity. Both instruments were compared to the substantially more extensive Schlangenangstfragebogen SCAF (Snake Anxiety Questionnaire, SNAQ). For all questionnaires, we found very good internal consistency, good reliability, and good to very good construct validity and criterion validity. Therefore, the screening instruments SANA and SCANS are suitable to replace the SNAQ with similar quality but higher time efficiency.