One tiny insect basically responsible for more deaths than most animals combined. That’s wild. 😲

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.

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