Original column According to what I’ve read the harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex Maricopa, has an LD50 of just 0.12 mg per kg of body weight which would seem to beat out the Taipan listed in the column.
I found this on a loser web site “These are the top 5 deadliest poisons on the planet”:
Sound like an interesting job … injecting mice with various poisons … probably not so good for the mice though …
Worse than the BWS (0.9), not as bad as the taipan (0.03)
I thought it was jelly fish neurotoxins!
Australian Geographic agrees on the ld50 of the inland taipan, also (in a nod to the original SD article, ) known as the Fierce Snake.
Anything else from around the world likely to dislodge anything in our top 10?
Are we comparing the toxicity of the raw poisons, mg for mg? Or of the purified toxic compounds, likewise? Or the “killing mass” for all the toxin contained in the creature at any given time? Or the average likelihood of dying from one single exposure (bite, sting, touch)?
It seems to me we lack some standard here!
I thought blue-ringed octopus might be a contender. It uses tetrodotoxin (also used by puffer fish and frogs).
But it only weighs in at 0.3 mg per kg, putting it ahead of the black widow spider, but behind the inland taipan (and ants!).
I’d agree- “most venomous creature on earth” should consider quantity of venom delivered as well as potency. If I slip a “half-lethal” dose of iocane* into your wine, you may not notice it at all.
although some of us have spent years building up a tolerance for iocane. 
The most venomous “total package” animal is probably the black mamba - Big at 6-10 feet, extremely toxic venom, usually strikes multiple times and delivers large venom loads each time. Death for humans is almost 100% without treatment within an hour.
According to a list of known toxin LD50 values (PDF), Clostridium botulinum is probably the winner among those, at 0.03 ng/kg.
This is what I’ve heard.
Although, if “total package” is a consideration, should a wild Komodo Dragon be considered? It makes a venom that causes pain and inhibits clotting, has huge teeth relative to other venomous animals, making the “no clotting” a very big deal, and also its mouth is full of toxins from rotting meet between its teeth, something bugs, snakes and smaller lizards can’t deliver.
Zoo Komodo Dragons have somewhat cleaner teeth, but you still wouldn’t want to be bitten by one-- although, IIRC, the one person who has survived a bite in known history, was bitten in a zoo-- but he also got immediate care.
I am kind of surprised to see no mention of someone’s ex.
S’cuse me while I go throw up from this description…