What Wild Animal Kills The Most Humans

The world'south deadliest animals aren't lions, tigers, or bears. This species is much more than common—and it's thriving in your backyard. Oh my!

This Animal Kills the Most Humans Every Year—and It's Not the One You're Thinking Shutterstock (3)

When you recall about a mortiferous beast, you may call back shark, king of beasts, or fifty-fifty a rhino. Even so, co-ordinate to several studies, the deadliest animal in the world is much smaller and mode more irritating. There are more than 100 varieties of this thing, and information technology feeds on man blood, transporting a vast array of diseases from ane person to next. Effigy it out, all the same? That's right—that buzzing, easy-to-squish mosquito is the deadliest creature, period.

The numbers don't lie: According to the World Health Arrangement, more than 725,000 people worldwide are killed by mosquito-borne diseases each year. These diseases include malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, and encephalitis. Malaria has the highest bloodshed rate, killing at least 600,000 people a twelvemonth.

"One of the reasons mosquitoes are the almost mortiferous is that they're able to suit easily to new environments," Burns Blackwell, president and chief executive officeholder of Terminix-Triad, recently told Accuweather.com.

Another reason the bugs are so deadly is that they breed chop-chop, Blackwell explains: Mosquitoes have learned to procreate in as picayune equally a few small drops of water, and each female person mosquito can produce between 50 and 500 eggs in her offset breed. Their populations as well peak at dissimilar times in different areas all over the world, making it nigh impossible to avoid being bitten. And every bite increases the risk of contracting a serious affliction. Here are 15 more than innocent-looking animals that are surprisingly dangerous.

In areas where mosquitoes are pervasive and acquit deadly diseases, local regime try to command the population through routine pesticide applications. You can protect yourself by eliminating places where standing water can accumulate (think bird baths, tire swings, poorly draining rain gutters), says Bernard Cohen, Dr., professor of dermatology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He also stresses that a footling protection volition become a long way: Wear bug repellent that contains DEET (up to thirty pct) when you lot head outdoors, and reapply it virtually every 4 hours.

The next deadliest animal after the mosquito is another one you wouldn't expect: humans. Around 475,000 people die every year past the hand of another human, which, when you call back about information technology, sadly isn't that shocking. Finishing out the list of the five deadliest animals in the globe are snakes, dogs, and the Tsetse fly.

Coming in much further down on the list are hippopotami (killing around 500 people every year), elephants and lions (around 100 each), and wolves and sharks (around x each). These stats are pretty surprising, considering those are the stereotypical animals that people retrieve of when it comes to dangerous species, non a tiny mosquito. Hither are 22 more animals that are deadlier than sharks.

The moral of the story is to stay safety—the ii almost deadly creatures on the planet are the ones you tin can barely see buzzing around y'all and the ones that you pass on the street every day. Yes, the animal kingdom is a lot more complicated than you think—these are the 23 other "facts" about animals you take all wrong.

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