This is mostly true but not always. One of my uncles was stationed in Africa during WWII and told me that teh Black Mamba scared them more than the Germans did. He told me he was walking patrol once and turned around to see a Black Mamba coming up the path behind him. The Mamba wasn’t pursing my uncle so much as just following him but he said it was only about ten feet behind him. Given that the snake itself was close to ten feet long that didn’t seem like much especially considering that Black Mambas are also lethally venomous.
I’ll agree that it’s pretty much unanswerable, but that won’t stop me from nominating the praying mantis. I once had a teacher who remarked that if mantises were the size of dogs there would be nothing left alive on the planet.
I’ve heard that, pound for pound, the clawed shrimp is the most aggressive animal on the planet. It, apparently attacks everything no matter what it’s size (often divers). I’m not sure what it’s proper name is, something like ‘ninja shrimp’ or something like that. anyway, it’s pretty darn aggressive, and no, i’m not making it up ; )
Haven’t you seen the commercial where the squirrel tries to make the car run off the road, then high-5’s his little squirrel friend? Bastards, I’m aiming for them from now on.
I’d read somewhere that it was the polar bear, which was reporter to be the only animal to attack without provocation.
But then I also read that it needs a lot of food, and doesn’t get much up there, so anything that moves sets its brain to “Hey! Zat food? Lemme see!”
So maybe being really hungry isn’t the same as vicious.
From watching Steve Irwin, I gather the answer would be crocodiles.
I’m just saying, there’s plenty of cruelty in nature. Lots of animals kill for fun. To say humans are any more vicious than other animals just cause we’ve got the tech to do it on a wider scale is kinda dumb.
My understanding is that older male water buffalo, solitary after losing their herd, are prone to hyper aggressivness and are considered the most dangerous animals to encounter on safari.
According to this site
Hippos have killed more people than any other animal, but I’d bet the flea, mosquito and maybe bee would all beat the overall hippo’s body count. In any event, Hippos are more in the spirit of the OP and I think truly kill more folks, on purpose, than other African animals.
I’m surprised nobody has yet nominated the chimpanzee. Horribly nasty, aggressive creatures. Probably not as bad as the hippo, but they’re in the running for Top 10.
Not only that, but chimpanzees are disturbingly strong (they can lift hundreds of pounds more than the average person)
despite being only 4 or so feet tall.
