Top 15 Deadliest Animals in the World

Did you know that the most deadly animal to humans isn’t a lion or tiger or bear?

It’s actually an insect. The mosquito carries diseases like malaria and dengue fever, which kill millions of people every year.

As our population continues to grow and we move more and more in to animal habitats the numbers of animal attacks and fatalities is expected to increase.

Mosquitoes

Mosquitoes are responsible for the deaths of more people than any other animal on earth. They carry diseases like malaria and dengue fever, which kill around one million people every year.

Snakes

Snakes are responsible for more human deaths than any other reptile. They can inject venom into their victims, which can cause paralysis or even death. In the United States the majority of venomous snakes are pit vipers which include rattlesnakes, copperheads and cottonmouths.  Pit vipers inject hemotoxic venom into their victim.

Among all pit vipers, the rattlesnake is the one most likely to bite you. In the United States, snake bites kill around seven people each year and up to 50,000 globally.

Dogs

Dogs have been domesticated for most of human history and have been a delight to many over the years. Stories have been told about brave dogs that served admirably in wars or that risked their lives to save persons in danger. 

Sadly, Dogs are responsible for more human deaths than any other mammal. In the US there are around 10,000 dog attacks that result in hospitalization each year and sadly there are around 50 fatalities each year from dog attacks. The biggest problem is dogs can carry rabies, which is a deadly virus that attacks the central nervous system. Dogs are responsible for 25,000 deaths each year.

Assassin Bugs

The assassin bug, also called the kissing bug, is responsible for carrying Chagas disease, which kills about 10-12,000 people a year on average. Chagas disease is a parasitic infection passed by the bug, which got its nickname by biting people on the face.

Tsetse Flies

Tsetse flies are another deadly insect. They carry the disease trypanosomiasis, which is also known as sleeping sickness. This disease can be fatal if left untreated. They are believed to be responsible for up to 10,000 deaths per year.

Freshwater Snails

The freshwater snail carries parasitic worms that infect people with a disease called schistosomiasis that can cause intense abdominal pain and blood in the stool or urine, depending on the area that’s affected. Millions of people contract the infection, and the WHO estimates that anywhere between 20,000 and 200,000 deaths can be attributed to schistosomiasis.

Crocodiles

Crocodiles are one of the deadliest animals in the world.

The Crocodile is a large aquatic reptile that lives throughout the Tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. Crocodiles tend to congregate in freshwater habitats like rivers, lakes, wetlands and sometimes in brackish water.

They can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh more than a thousand pounds. Crocodiles have been known to kill hundreds of people each year.

Hippos

The Hippopotamus (hippopotamus amphibius) is the third largest living land mammal on the earth. The first largest is the elephant and the second is the white rhinoceros. The hippopotamus is a large, mostly plant-eating African mammal, one of only two extant, and three or four recently extinct, species in the family ‘Hippopotamidae’.

Hippos may look like harmless creatures, but they can be quite dangerous. Hippos are responsible for the deaths of around 500 people each year.

Lions

The lion (Panthera leo) is a large cat of the genus Panthera and belongs to the family Felidae, along with tigers, leopards and jaguars. It is native to Africa and India and is the second largest cat in the world, following the tiger.

Lions may not be the most deadly animal on this list, but they are certainly one of the most feared. They can kill their prey with a single bite, and have been known to attack humans on occasion. In Africa, lions are responsible for the deaths of around 100 people each year.

Elephants

The word Elephant in latin (as ‘ele’ and ‘phant’) means the ‘Huge Arch’. Most elephants live in the grasslands of Africa and in the forests of Asia although elephants can live in nearly any habitat that has adequate quantities of food and water. 

Elephants may seem like gentle giants, but they can be quite dangerous when provoked. They have been known to kill people with their tusks, and have been responsible for the deaths of around 100 people each year.

Wolves

Wolves (Canis Lupus), are related to dogs, or more rightly, dogs are actually related to wolves. Wolves and dogs are quite similar in many ways, however, in most cases, wolves are larger animals. Wolves generally have longer legs than dogs. It is difficult to imagine, however, everything from a pug dog to a doberman comes from the wolf.

Wolves will rarely attack humans but each year there are around 10 deaths internationally caused by wolf attacks.

Sharks

In some shape or form, Sharks have been around for about 400 million years.

Even before dinosaurs roamed the earth, sharks hunted through our oceans and even in some rivers and lakes. Sharks are such good survivors that they have had little need to evolve in the last 150 million years. There are about 360 different species of sharks, which are divided into 30 families.

Sharks are another deadly creature that can be found in the water. There are around 400 unprovoked shark attacks each year, and around 5-10 of those attacks are fatal.

While it may seem interesting to learn about different animals that are deadly to humans one of the deadliest of all is our own species. Humans are responsible for around 500,000 deaths of other humans each year.

List of Deadliest Animals to humans

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to_humans