Talk:List of deadliest animals to humans

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Full list discussion

 * 1) Hippopotamus kill an average of 500 humans per year from attacks
 * 2) Elephants kill an average of 500 humans per year from attacks
 * 3) Lions kill an average of 250 humans per year from animal attack
 * 4) African buffalo kill an average of 200 humans per year from attacks
 * 5) Deer kill an average of 130 humans per year from deer–vehicle collisions and cars swerving off the road
 * 6) Bees kill an average of 53 humans per year from bee stings
 * 7) Jellyfish kill an average of 40 humans per year from stings
 * 8) Ants kill an average of 30 humans per year from venom
 * 9) Leopards kill an average of 29 humans per year from leopard attack
 * 10) Horses kill an average of 20 humans per year from animal attack
 * 11) Wolves kill an average of 10 humans per year from wolf attack
 * 12) Sharks kill an average of 5 humans per year shark attack
 * 13) Alligators kill an average of 1 human per year from animal attack

User:power~enwiki deleted these from the list. I disgree with this user. I think these deadly animals should be on the list. Humans need to know what animals are a threat to humanity, even down to alligators at 1 kill per year. Humans stay out of fresh water in the southern part of Florida and so on. If not, then alligators would kill a lot more humans. The list is in order of deadliest first. I am not saying alligators are the deadliest animal to humans.--Wyn.junior (talk) 16:11, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * No it shouldn't. It's not a list of "deadliest", it's a listicle you copied here.  I considered requesting the whole thing be deleted, but something can probably be salvaged. power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 16:13, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Unclear
Article makes little sense as it stands. The definition of "deadliest" is not clear, and the phrase "due to any type of cause of death" is complete nonsense. Deb (talk) 12:55, 19 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately the figure given here for humans killing humans is a gross underestimate, if we go by the article's claim (which is not in the source) that we are listing deaths "due to any type of cause of death". Phil Bridger (talk) 13:45, 19 March 2019 (UTC)


 * User:Deb has proposed this article for deletion typing "I do not think this list is meaningful or the article salvageable. See talk page.".


 * Deb, Humans deserve to know what animals are killing us. We can learn from this and prevent animals from killing us in the future from this very important article.--Wyn.junior (talk) 17:58, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * This list is problematic in several ways:
 * It is copied from just one source.
 * The source gives no information about how this list was determined, so "due to any type of cause of death" has simply been made up by the person who wrote this article.
 * The source lists a total mish-mash of species, genera and higher-level taxons, for example all snakes are lumped together.
 * According to the source the 24th most deadly animal only killed one person. Of course there are more than 24 types of animal that have killed more than one person: think of all the deadly parasites, to start with. That is obvious nonsense so the source is obviously unreliable.
 * I'm sure there are many other reasons, but I've already listed more than enough to show that this whole article is complete bollocks.
 * Phil Bridger (talk) 18:12, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Better sources are being built. This is the best available now. We need and deserve to know what animals are killing humans--Wyn.junior (talk) 19:34, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I have started a deletion discussion for this article, so please comment at Articles for deletion/List of deadliest animals to humans. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:37, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah to make sense you'd need relative numbers not absolute ones. The vast majority of mosquitos we meet do NOT kill us. Same for humans. When meeting an angry hippo you should be more scared than when riding the subway everyday. This is magazine-popular-science.

Snails
Its not the snail's fault! Theyre just carrying a parasite. And unlike mosquitos, theyre not even biting us ... theyre just tryin' to survive. I would argue that snails should be bumped from the list and their slot given to the real troublemaker, the trematode worm. I guess if the sources specifically say snails, we might not have much wiggle room. Still i'd put an inline note, because honestly, i dont think its clear to a casual reader that the snail is not, e.g., a venomous animal that bites our feet, but which we just dont hear about much.

The snail is not the problem here! — Soap — 16:28, 11 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Yeah, same thing's true for mosquitoes. Sincerely, 2A02:A212:2701:6D00:A09F:B2C2:5E5F:EF87 (talk) 19:30, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Specifically, the main killer is schistosomiasis. Snails host a wide assortment of trematodes, but schistosomes are the snail-hosted ones that cause the largest human health impact. It might be good to be more specific about which snails - Biomphalaria, Bulimus, and Oncomelania are the main host genera. (Diagrams of the parasite lifecycle almost never resemble any of the three, though I have seen a diagram with a credibly Biomphalaria-like shell on a land snail body.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.14.251.239 (talk) 02:15, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

The parasite S haematobium, S mansoni, and S japonicum causes Bilharzia uses the snail to reproduce and is estimated to kill 200,000 people annually. Both bilharzia, the parasitic worms, and snail are at fault. One of the videos and articles I read, the Japanese where trying to control the snail problem to reduce schistosomiasis(bilharzia) numbers. Should we change the snail number to 200,000 or put that under parasitic worms and/or snail combined. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6997417/#:~:text=Two%20hundred%20and%20thirty%20million,and%20200%2C000%20deaths%20occur%20annually https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/schistosomiasis 2nd link claims "...24 072 (1) and 200 000 (2)..."people die annually putting those parasites and/or snails between 3 to 5 on the list -Germanator 20:34, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

table is nonsense
for example 10,000000000000000 is given as the number of people kiled by tsetse flies. Thye layout of this number is confusing and unclear. Is it saying 10 peopel killed? or 10,000000000000000 ie 10,000,000,000,000,000 which is more than the number of humans who have ever lived  and died in the last 10 million years. You need to sort of the decimal places and trailign zeros to make the numbers make sense. In either case the number is so far out its just drivel, The true unmber is somewhere beteen 50k and 500k depending who u ask.2.59.114.197 (talk) 21:44, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 April 2020
Add commas to CNET mosquito deaths per year to match formatting across the rest of the document. Specifically, change "1000000" to "1,000,000" Hegelocampus (talk) 05:26, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * ✅ –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 14:33, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Remove abortions when discussing what is not included in the human category
Where the article clarifies the exclusions of the human category, abortions is mentioned. This is unnecessary since abortion does not kill humans. Including abortions would be like including disposed embryos from IVF, which is ridiculous. By having abortions mentioned in the list, this implies that women and girls who have abortions are murderers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.144.11.58 (talk) 23:37, 11 August 2020 (UTC)


 * You are correct. Abortion happens for multiple reasons:
 * 1. The woman has decided she does not want children.
 * 2. The woman can't raise the child or can't afford to raise it.
 * 3. The last two reasons speak for themselves, but there are many other reasons.
 * So, abortion is NOT murder. So is euthanasia.
 * 2A02:A212:2701:6D00:A09F:B2C2:5E5F:EF87 (talk) 19:34, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this 100%. Abortion is not murder. The mention of it is completely unnecessary. Including abortions as a way humans die is flat out wrong. This needs to be changed. Now. NeverThoughtIdBeHere (talk) 21:07, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 September 2020
24.65.95.174 (talk) 17:01, 15 September 2020 (UTC) Humans are the deadliest animal on earth With missiles to nukes
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. &#8209;&#8209; El Hef  ( Meep? ) 17:11, 15 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Also: It's most likely not true and nothing should be changed. Here's why: These list are quoting popular statistics, and are not very scientific at any rate. They prolly aren't meant to be. To get an scientifically accurate list about how "deadly" an animal to "humans" is, you would have to factor in how often a human encounters that animal and how often that results in a fatality and how likely an encounter is in general.
 * Think about this: The many, many humans you have met in your live haven't killed you yet, have they? Astonishingly that also means: The mosquito isn't quite as deadly as we'd believe either. The vast majority of the mosquitos you encounter do not kill you.
 * So, no humans most likely aren't that deadly to other humans. Otherwise there wouldn't be 7,800,000,000 people on earth would there? We are just many, so violent encounter happen more often in absolute numbers. I'd say you should be a lot more scared when you encouter a box jellyfish swimming next to you, then when you see your neighbor. I wonder if there is a list that doesn't uses relative numbers, but i don't think so.
 * On a personal note: That "humans" are on these magazine-style-lists at all is likely rooted in western misanthropy and a rightwing romanticization of nature. It's trendy here to hate humanity for some people. We are quite deadly to OTHER animals directly and indirectly. A lot less to ourselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:A61:118F:2801:F566:713C:A5EC:DCE3 (talk) 23:08, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

The lists should be named "Animals that as a group cause the most fatalities in humans"
The lists on this article would be accurately describes as: "Animals that as a group cause the most fatalities in humans". An individual mosquito in the fast majority of cases isn't dangerous. Same with humans. Most of the people you meet really don't kill you. You should be more scared when meeting an angry hippo then when riding the subway... The "deadliness" of an animal would be measured in looking how often an encounter in the wild with that animal results in death. Just accumulating fatalities by a group and them comparing absolute numbers, does not measure the "deadliness" of an individual animal at all. Yet, that is what the article assumes. It is misguiding in that way. Add a section that explains that these aren't relative numbers?

what's the point?
it looks like most of the non human animal deaths are rather caused due to poverty and ignorance, including snakes (only happen in india and not australia, for instance).. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases

so what's the point of this list, exactly?

feed on the fear of snakes, mosquitos and diseases? realise humans are actually more dangerous?

i think it should, somehow, at least make clearer that the deaths in the list are primarily caused by some sort of negligence, and not the vectorized animals. cregox (talk) 05:20, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Trains kill a lot in India but it also doesn't mean they are that deadly per capita in western countries. Germanator 20:40, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 April 2022
Top 10 Most Dangerous Animal In The World To Humans David L. Coates (talk) 13:25, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 14:36, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

What?
Dude humans aren’t animals dumb f*cks. Get over it 104.9.18.231 (talk) 21:48, 27 June 2023 (UTC)


 * According to an overwhelming majority of scientists, what you're saying, is bogus. 2A02:A212:2701:6D00:A09F:B2C2:5E5F:EF87 (talk) 19:37, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Inconsistent treatment of disease: human-spread disease ignored
Mosquitos come out on top in this list due to deaths caused by diseases they spread being included in the number. But it appears that this standard is not applied to all the animals in the list. For example, human-spread diseases are responsible for millions of human deaths per year, including AIDS (2.6 million), tuberculosis (1.6 million) and the vaguer lower-respiratory tract diseases (3.4 million, including influenza and pneumonia) and diarrheal diseases (1.6 million, cholera etc.). In total 14.7 million people are killed by infectious disease per year. Subtracting the roughly 1 million killed by diseases spread by other animals (overwhelmingly malaria), that leaves around 13.5 million deaths due to diseases spread by humans. Adding the 400-500k deaths caused directly by humans, we get a total of 14 million; 1300% more than mosquitos! There's no way to place mosquitos highly on this list without placing humans above them. Amaurea (talk) 10:24, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

WTF?
Humans. Humans are NEVER included in those lists. From diseases alone, humans kill millions of other humans each and every year (Tuberculosis, AIDS, respiratory tract diseases, diarrheal diseases, COVID-19(!)). And if you include the non-human victims, then in 2023 alone, we have killed so many animals for food, that the human population would fit in 12 times, and there would still be some leftovers. (4 billion, something like 50% of the human population) Thanks for your attention and cooperation. Sincerely, 2A02:A212:2701:6D00:A09F:B2C2:5E5F:EF87 (talk) 19:18, 1 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Yes! Also “battle related deaths” don’t count…..but it should at least be specially mentioned that over 1/2 million die this way —- but aren’t considered murder…….. 2600:8807:400:1000:3918:3283:5026:3653 (talk) 17:23, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Specifically*…… 2600:8807:400:1000:3918:3283:5026:3653 (talk) 17:24, 27 May 2024 (UTC)