Animals are all around us. Because of their close proximity, many people take it for granted how dangerous some of the animals that live right in our communities really are. In this article, we’ll discuss the 10 deadliest animals in the world, ranked by the number of deaths they are responsible for, with some adjustments for aggression, percentage of fatal attacks, and other similar factors.
# 10 Deadliest Animal In The World: Sharks
While sharks are usually portrayed as deadly killers in movies and TV shows, the reality is different. Worldwide, sharks make only a few hundred attacks on humans, and on average they die six to seven people a year. In the United States, sharks cause approximately one death every two years. The species responsible for the highest percentage of fatal attacks are the great white shark, bull shark, and tiger shark.
# 9 Deadliest Animal In The World: Elephants
We usually think of elephants as intelligent, friendly creatures, and they have been a staple of circus performances for years. The reason they are so good is because of their intelligence, complex emotions, and social structures, but their status as the largest land animal means that they wield tremendous weight and the associated strength.
Captive elephants are capable of anger and retaliation, while elephants in the wild can be territorial and protect their family members. On average, 500 people per year die in collisions with elephants, when they are trampled, thrown, crushed and in other equally unpleasant ways.
# 8 Deadliest Animal In The World: Hippos
Hippos are the third largest land mammal after elephants and rhinoceroses, and they have about 500 fatal human encounters each year, just like the last entry on our list. However, they earned a higher rank due to their reputation for being violent, aggressive, and extremely territorial.
Hippos are known to even attack boats for invading their habitat, and they can use their sharp teeth, which grow up to 20 inches in length, very effectively. They attack by biting, trampling the foot, and will keep the enemy under water until he drowns.
7. The deadliest animal in the world: tsetse flies.
The tsetse fly is the first of several insects to make our list of the 10 deadliest animals in the world. As in the case of the coming bed bugs, people are not killed by the bite of the tsetse fly, but the resulting infection, which turns out to be fatal. Tsetse flies are found in tropical regions of Africa, and their bite infects the host with the parasite that causes African sleeping sickness.
African sleeping sickness is a very difficult disease to treat, especially given the scarcity of medical resources in the area, but without treatment, the disease is fatal without exception. Due to the region’s remoteness and lack of reliable information, mortality estimates reach 500,000, but more reliable sources indicate that about 10,000 people die each year from tsetse fly bites.
# 6 Deadliest Animal In The World: Kissing Beetles
The killer beetle is a collective name used to refer to over 150 species of insects that possess a particular type of curved proboscis. This proboscis is used as a defense tool as well as for hunting, and the tendency of these species to target soft tissue areas around the mouth of humans is what brought them the more widely known name for kissing.
Most kissing insects found around the world pose no threat to humans, other than an abnormally painful bite; however, several species that inhabit Central and South America transmit a dangerous disease called Chagas disease. Even without treatment, the death rate from Chagas disease is low, but the widespread nature of the parasitic infection means that even a 5% death rate causes 12,000 to 15,000 deaths per year from organ failure due to parasitic infection.
# 5 The deadliest animal in the world: crocodiles
The next predator on our list of the deadliest animals in the world is the crocodile. The crocodile is one of the largest, most aggressive and dangerous animals in the world, claiming 1,000 to 5,000 deaths annually. Weighing over 2,000 pounds, crocodiles have tremendous bite force and can move at speeds up to 25 miles per hour.
Crocodiles are the only entry on this list that actively hunts and preys on humans. The deadliest species is the Nile crocodile, which lives in the regions surrounding the Nile River and was so feared by the ancient Egyptians that they wore the insignia of their crocodile god to protect them from reptiles.
# 4 The deadliest animal in the world: freshwater snails
Oddly enough, the next deadliest animal in our ranking is none other than the freshwater snail. Like the other, less overtly threatening species we have mentioned, it is not the snail that directly kills humans, but the disease they transmit. The World Health Organization estimates that several million people are diagnosed each year with a parasitic infection called schistosomiasis, and approximately 20,000 to 200,000 of these cases are fatal.
Schistosomiasis causes severe abdominal pain and blood in the urine of those infected, but is usually not fatal outside developing countries. The wide range of possible deaths is the result of unclear government reports and lack of medical care in these remote areas and underdeveloped countries.
# 3 The deadliest animal in the world: dogs / wolves
Man’s best friend is also one of the deadliest threats. Fatal encounters with dogs and wolves are extremely rare compared to the number of deaths from dog-borne rabies infections. We are several hundred years distant from the time when wolf packs actively hunted people in India, causing more than 200 deaths a year in the 18th and 19th centuries, but 40,000-50,000 deaths annually are caused by the rabies virus alone. Again, the vast majority of these deaths occur outside of First World countries and are the result of a lack of advanced medical care. Transmission of rabies from wolf species is much lower than from dogs, but they are not zero.
# 2 The deadliest animal in the world: snakes
It turns out that the fear of snakes or ophidiophobia is not so unfounded. By the most conservative estimates, snakes are responsible for more than 100,000 deaths a year. Worldwide shortages of antidotes, as well as remote areas inhabited by some of the most venomous snake species, contribute to such a high death toll.
While many people are wary of large snakes such as boas and anacondas, in reality the snake responsible for most deaths is a sawed viper that does not exceed three feet in length! Also called the carpet viper, this snake is native to Africa, the Middle East and India, and females of this species are more than twice as venomous as males. In addition to the high mortality rate, carpet viper venom is a neurotoxin that causes an extremely high number of amputations in victims that it does not kill immediately.
Deadliest animal in the world: mosquitoes
One of the deadliest animals in the world is also one of the smallest. Mosquitoes are estimated to cause 750,000 to 1 million deaths per year. They are carriers of many diseases that are fatal to mankind, including malaria, dengue, West Nile and Zika viruses. Malaria alone is responsible for over half a million deaths annually.
Only the female mosquito feeds on humans, while the male feeds on nectar. Some scientists have estimated that potentially half of all human deaths since the appearance of our species may be the result of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes. Even without such a wild historical assessment, the mosquito has firmly cemented its place at the top of our list of the deadliest animals thanks to its aggression and the death of almost one million people a year.
Fortunately, only a few entries on this list are capable of direct deliberate attacks on people, and most deaths from other people occur in rural areas or developing countries with limited access to health care. This means that as quality health care becomes more affordable, we can expect to see significant reductions in mortality from a number of these animals. It is noteworthy that the people themselves are missing from this list. On average, nearly 500,000 deaths are the result of homicide worldwide. That number alone would place humanity as the second most important threat on our list, and as our population grows, this number is likely to continue to grow.
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