What would you say is the most dangerous animal on Earth? Sharks? Snakes? Humans?
Of course the answer depends on how you define dangerous. Personally I’ve had a thing about sharks since the first time I saw
Jaws.
But if you’re judging by how many people are killed by an animal every
year, then the answer isn’t any of the above. It’s mosquitoes.
When it comes to killing humans, no other animal even comes close. Take a look:
What makes mosquitoes so dangerous? Despite their innocuous-sounding
name—Spanish for “little fly”—they carry devastating diseases. The worst
is malaria, which kills more than 600,000 people every year; another
200 million cases incapacitate people for days at a time. It threatens
half of the world’s population and causes billions of dollars in lost
productivity annually. Other mosquito-borne diseases include dengue
fever, yellow fever, and encephalitis.
There are more than 2,500 species of mosquito, and mosquitoes are
found in every region of the world except Antarctica. During the peak
breeding seasons, they outnumber every other animal on Earth, except
termites and ants. They were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths
during the construction of the Panama Canal. And they affect population
patterns on a grand scale: In many malarial zones, the disease drives
people inland and away from the coast, where the climate is more
welcoming to mosquitoes.
Considering their impact, you might expect mosquitoes to get more
attention than they do. Sharks kill fewer than a dozen people every year
and in the U.S. they get a week dedicated to them on TV every year.
Mosquitoes kill 50,000 times as many people, but if there’s a TV channel
that features Mosquito Week, I haven’t heard about it.
