What are the world’s deadliest animals, and can we protect ourselves against them?

One and a half million people are killed by animals every year. Almost one million by other animals, and more than half a million from direct conflict among ourselves.

Almost all of these deaths from other animals are caused by just two types: mosquitoes and snakes.

In the chart below, we’ve brought together estimates of the number of people killed by different animals.

These numbers are estimates, and some come with significant uncertainty. That’s why we’ve published a detailed methodology explaining our sources and how they compare. Despite this uncertainty, we feel confident about the relative orders of magnitude across different animals.[1]

The biggest killers, by far, are mosquitoes. They have been one of our biggest threats for millennia, and still kill approximately 760,000 people every year.2] Over 80% of those deaths are the result of [malaria, which is transmitted and spread by the Anopheles mosquito. Malaria still kills close to half a million children every year.

Another 100,000 people die every year from other mosquito-borne diseases, including dengue fever and yellow fever (spread by the mosquito species Aedes aegypti) and Japanese encephalitis.

Snakes are one of the most common phobias, and you can see why. They are the second largest killers. The death toll from venomous snakes is surprisingly uncertain, as many of these deaths occur in rural areas where death records are often poor.[3] But the figure is likely to be around 100,000 deaths per year. That means snakes kill more than all animals below them on the list combined.[4]

Most of those remaining deaths are caused by dogs, the animals that humans have grown to love as domesticated pets. The majority are due to rabies, rather than direct wounds.

Near the bottom of the list, we reach the animals that dominate our nightmares — sharks and wolves. They make for gripping headlines and blockbuster films. But in reality, shark and wolf attacks are very rare.

Of course, they don’t kill fewer people because they’re less dangerous. We’d rather be locked in a room with a mosquito than a lion. The real difference is exposure: it’s much easier to avoid large predators than it is to avoid disease-carrying insects and parasites.[5]

The good news is that most deaths from animals — especially the largest killers — are preventable. We have bednets and insecticide sprays to reduce exposure to mosquitoes, and medication to treat malaria if someone does become infected. New techniques, such as the Wolbachia method, have been developed to stop the spread of dengue fever. Antivenoms can often save someone from a potentially fatal snakebite.[6]

The problem is that not everyone has access to these preventive and treatment methods when they need them.[7] If these small killers received the same global attention as large predators, more effort might go into stopping them. That is one reason why these comparisons are useful: as a reminder of what people are actually dying from, and where the most lives could be saved.

There are other diseases — in particular, neglected tropical diseases — that could also be dramatically reduced with better access to treatment.

In many regions, deaths from mosquitoes have decreased dramatically. Malaria was once prevalent in countries that are now free of it. If we could achieve this in all parts of the world, the number of deaths caused by other animals would be almost six times smaller.[8]

If we were to also eliminate deaths from snakes through the use of antivenoms and better diagnostics, the death toll would be again reduced by almost two-thirds.[9]

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Max Roser and Edouard Mathieu for editorial feedback and comments on this article, and Pablo Rosado for technical support.

Endnotes

[1] We’ve also rounded these figures to not overstate their accuracy.

2] It has often [been claimed that “mosquitoes have killed half of the humans who ever lived”. While the exact figure isn’t known, further investigation into the numbers suggests that this is unlikely to be true. Tim Harford and team covered this on an episode of BBC More or Less. What’s undeniable is that they have killed *many *people through the spread of infectious diseases.

3] Our former colleague, Saloni Dattani, wrote [a great article about snakebites in India, and the range of available estimates.

[4] All the other animals on the list sum to 81,000 deaths.

5] This is even true among large animals. Hippos kill far fewer people than elephants or big cats. But among typical safari animals, they actually have the [highest chance of killing you in a given encounter. Their low death toll is simply explained by the fact that humans rarely come into contact with them.

[6] Not all venomous snakes have an effective antivenom, so based on current treatments, many but not all snakebite deaths could potentially be averted.

[7] Williams, D. J., Faiz, M. A., Abela-Ridder, B., Ainsworth, S., Bulfone, T. C., Nickerson, A. D., ... & Warrell, D. A. (2019). Strategy for a globally coordinated response to a priority neglected tropical disease: Snakebite envenoming. PLoS neglected tropical diseases. Bawaskar, H. S., & Bawaskar, P. H. (2019). Snakebite envenoming. The Lancet.

[8] The death toll from non-human animals was around 920,000. Mosquitoes caused 760,000 of those. If these dropped to zero, the total would be 160,000, which is 5.8-times smaller.

[9] Snakebites caused around 100,000 deaths. If the total (after eliminating deaths from mosquitoes) was 160,000, eliminating a further 100,000 would reduce the death toll by almost two-thirds.

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This page was imported from Our World in Data. “What are the world’s deadliest animals, and can we protect ourselves against them?” by Hannah Ritchie, Fiona Spooner, published by Our World in Data under CC BY 4.0. Changed here: set as a page, its interactive charts shown as pictures. Data from third parties keeps its own licence.

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