What's the most dangerous animal on the planet, apart from humans?

Question

Does an individual animal's ability to kill count more than a groups? Does the number of confirmed kills count more than perceived threat?

Answer 1

From a public health perspective, mosquitoes are vectors for more pathogens than most would like to think about- malaria and a number of fevers, viruses, parasites... you name it.

From a handling perspective, either elephants or hippos. Both are exceedingly dangerous; about a dozen handlers die every year working with elephants.

From a toxicological standpoint, some sea snakes have venom that rival that of their counterparts on land- they are exceedingly toxic.

Perhaps rats should be included there as well, for they carry fleas that in turn carry bubonic plaque- the pneumonic form of which is about 99.97% fatal when untreated. Of course, bats could be implicated in similar risks, as they carry- and can survive- rabies, which is virtually 100% fatal when not treated.

In terms of one-on-one with a predator, either polar bears or saltwater crocodiles would be the nastiest. Unarmed, surviving an attack from either is unlikely at best. Similarly, the electric eel is a species from which one cannot defend against without specialized equipment (nets, gloves, etc.); an eel can discharge several hundred watts per pulse, once a minute for hours without any signs of tiring. Trying to attack an electric eel using bare hands would be futile, and possibly fatal.

So, it all depends upon the criterion used for "most dangerous."

Answer 2

In a general knowledge quiz, most people would know that insects are the most diverse of all creatures – there are over a million different species known and biologists continue to discover more. But how about a question asking you to name the most dangerous animal on the planet? Lions, perhaps, or sharks? Maybe crocodiles or a certain sort of snake? And the rhinoceros is well known to have a fearsome temper…….. But actually the answer is none of these. Several members of that vast diversity of insects are competing for this gruesome prize. The common housefly, for example, is claimed by some to be the most dangerous animal on earth because scientists have shown it can carry over 200 different pathogenic microorganisms, like bacteria and viruses. But somehow the housefly sounds a rather less convincing winner than a much more ferocious insect. Surely the gold medal for danger, if we were to award one, would go to mosquitoes.

Answer 3

As mentioned by numerous others, the mosquito is far and away the most dangerous animal to man. Malaria kills more than a million people every year in Africa alone, and infects more than 300 million people each year. That's about equivalent to the entire population of the United States, every single year.

And that's just malaria. Other mosquito vectored diseases such as yellow fever, dengue and a wide variety of viral encephalitises (such as West Nile, St Louis, Denge, Japanese etc, etc) have killed more humans throughout human history than any other factor besides war.

In North America we tend to think of mosquitoes as a nuisance, but in most of the rest of the world they are a life and death problem.

In terms of mammals or other animals attacking people, the most dangerous animal is actually the domestic dog. Man's 'best friend' is responsible for about a dozen fatalities each year in the US alone, but the number of non-fatal attacks is staggering. Each year there are approximately five million dog bites in the United States, and upwards of 800,000 of these require medical treatment. Around forty percent of the attacks are on children under 14, and eighty percent of the fatalities are children. The vast majority of these attacks are from the family's own dog or their neighbour's dog.

Even if you combine all of the attacks worldwide by lions, crocodiles, sharks, poisonous snakes and venomous spiders, they don't come anywhere CLOSE to the damage done by an animal considered a harmless family pet.

So the perceived threat is definitely more related to what gets treated as a 'dangerous' animal than the actual probability of being attacked or injured by an animal. People absolutely freak when they find a spider in the basement, but think nothing about letting their three-year old play with a Rottweillor.

Answer 4

That's a debatable subject. Some say it is the box jellyfish - an Australian jellyfish who's sting can kill in minutes if you count it as the animal's ability to kill, whilst if you consider confirmed kills as your medium then it is the hippo by far - they are very territorial and have killed hundreds of people. It could be the mosquito, since its bite can spread hundreds of diseases. So take your pick - box jellyfish, hippo or mosquito.

By the way, I can't remember who it was that said gorilla but that's BS. Gorillas are actually quite gental animals, a chimpanzee is more dangerous then a gorilla.

Answer 5

For it to be considered the most dangerous animal, it has to have an individual ability to kill alone, the number of confirmed kills can't be counted as a factor really, because it depends on how hard the animal was to kill.

Answer 6

Bacteria in flies and mosquitoes are certainly the biggest killers but the question was about animals, not prokaryotes. For outright lethality, it may go to cone snails that deliver enough poison to kill animals thousands of times their own weight. For aggressiveness, I think killer bees have an over the top response in defending their hives. On the other hand, both snails and bees are limited by their need for warm environments. In terms of sheer toughness against evolutionary pressure, sharks have been around since dinosaur times so that says they must be doing something right and they are found in almost all water climates.

Answer 7

An animals ability to kill is a result evolution of defence and hunting requirements, whether or not it's a threat to humans or it's prey depends on the animal itself, a shark will attack under it's instinct ability, but not in defence, a snake will bite under it's instinct of defence concerning humans and for it's prey it's hungry and needs to eat. Lions hunt in packs to hunt larger prey, when attacking humans it's more than likely a rouge lion that's hungry, humans get in the way and they are slower than a zebra. Easy meal. So an animals ability to kill weather in packs or individual efforts is very debatable but i think I'd be more worried of being bitten by a snake or a spider and dieing painfully and slowly than having bits of me riped off.

Answer 8

It all depends on how you define "dangerous". The traditional deciding factor is how dangerous any animals are to HUMANS - even though I agree this is of course biased. An ant colony is going to say humans or maybe ant eaters are the most dangerous creatures on earth. Garden birds are going to say domestic cats are the most dangerous. And so on.

But if you go by the number of humans killed or made ill by one particular creature, the biggest killer is in fact the mosquito. Over the centuries they have killed millions of people and spread lots of disease. I believe the current estimate is approximately 2 million people a year dying from mosquito-vectored malaria alone.

Answer 9

I would say that it would be the Grizzly Bear. Running into one of these in the wild would be very bad news indeed, unless you had a gun. The Grizzly Bear is a notorious killer that can easily out-run a man and is easily capable of ripping him apart.

Oh yes, to the person who said spiders or mosquitos, they are insects not animals.

Answer 10

A female Anopheles Mosquito, the zoonotic vector of Malaria, the number one cause of death to humans on earth.