Research Methodology Question

In My Humble Opinion
1

The Guinness book (when it was still meaningful, unlike the picture-heavy coffee table items of today) for a couple of years gave a category: the most dangerous animal. It suggested the malaria mosquito, which they estimate was responsible for approx. 50% of all human deaths since recorded history, and no doubt long before that.

How would you try and go verifying this claim?

2

All deaths, or just all deaths that could in any way be ascribed to an animal?

3

I’d start with current World Health Organization mortality statistics and work my way backwards.