I’m surprised no one has mentioned the Giant Squid…huge, territorial, EATS whales…attempts to copulate with nuclear missle subs…
I’d say one could easily take a great white…
my 2 cents…
Joan Rivers
Having just come back from two weeks on safari in Manyaleti perhaps I can add my 2c worth. Our rangers were extreemly knowledgable and had much experience with a number of wild animals.
Old Cape buffalo are indeed quite dangerous; our trackers reckoned that they were the only animals who gave you absolutely no sign that they were going to charge; they’d stare you down for a while and either walk away, or come for you, you’d never know which. As their useful mating life comes to an end they begin to be rejected to the outskirts of their herd, closer and closer to the lions, combine that with fading eyesight and you can understand why they’re so aggressive. Rumour had it that they’d double back on their tracks and sneak up on you if you were hunting them on foot.
Hyena’s on the other hand weren’t aggressive at all. They are scavengers and will only take you if they are sure they can get away with it, such as if you’re asleep. One hyena came right up to the jeep and started snifing at our ranger’s boot, as he had his foot hanging out of the car. Just as the hyena stretched forward to have a chomp, the ranger whomped him upside the head and that hyena ran like the wind, tail between his legs. Aggressive, no, but ugly, yes.
Black mamba’s on the other hand were considered very dangerous as their poison is extreemly virulent, when you get bit by one you’re not likely to be anywhere near a hospital even if there were an anti-venom, which there isn’t, and they can move as fast as a running man. To top it all off, they are territorial, so they can’t be relied on to slither away as you approach.
These rangers would drive up to rhino so close you could touch them, pick up scorpions or sit in a buffalo herd in the dark (in the Land Rover) waiting for lions to pounce, but none of them wanted to go looking for a Black Maba, so my vote has to go with the snake.
:eek:
(bridge. Captain is pacing. Sonar officer is glued to his scope.)
SO: Sir, we got a bogey, two hundred meters, coming in fast!
Captain: Russian?
SO: Don’t know, sir.
(loud thump is heard. Deathly silence overtakes the ship. Icky squeaking noises begin and sub starts to rock. A loud sigh of contentment is heard and sub stops rocking.)
SO: Sir, it’s gone.
Captain: Dammit, that jerk better call!
This sums up my first thoughts when I read that.
Yes, I meant malaria…
according to WHO average 1 million casualties per year
piranha.
I was told by an ornithologist once that the blue jay, (Cyanocitta cristata), is the meanest bird alive. I was a attacked by once for walking under the tree it nested in once.
Well…if memory serves…botulism has the Guinness Book record for deadliest substance…something like a half-pound of the stuff could kill every living thing on the planet…
I thought I heard once about a mongoose-like animal in Madagascar (the fossa?- not sure) that is considered hyperagressive for it’s size. And that the natives had legends of a now-extinct relative to it that was leopard-sized and actively hunted humans. A five-foot long, man eating weasel?
All of the animals you list…and in fact almost ALL animals are vicious in the circumstances which will lead to their demise if they are not. Aquisition of food: the prey item will not go willingly, so there must be a certain component of violence. Territory, mating rights, protection of young.
Possibly you are searching for an animal which, as a normal behavioral mode, is vicious or aggressive at completely random times without provocation and, in fact, for no discernable reason or evolutionary advantage.
Without delving into the distaff side of any given species as the obvious candidates, we must then look for something which kills just for the fun of it or because it can, not because it must. By definition, it must be a solitary creature since it would be too dangerous in a societal setting.
So maybe something that lives alone because it eats it’s mate. What is the evolutionary advantage of killing and eating your mate during copulation? For the caloric value of course, since you now have to carry the bastard’s children and hatch them. And he wouldn’t be any help anyway! So that is not our answer.
What about viruses? They have killed a large part of the earthly biota over the years. But they are not vicious because they are not doing it apurpose. And they do manage to spread themselves around, so there seems to be an evolutionary advantage to infection millons of people. There is just not much advantage to the people who do not survive.
No, apart from my editor, I can think of only one beast which will hunt you down and kill you without any provocation. A creature so horrible that merely crossing it’s path spells doom. Yes, through this door is a lair…a lair of irrepressable temptation! Follow if you dare-but only if ye be men of valor, for the entrance to this site is guarded by a creature so foul, so cruel, that no man has ever fought with it and lived! Bones of four hundred-fifty men lay strewn about its lair. So, brave knights, if you doubt your courage or your strength, come na further, for death awaits you all with nasty BIG POINTY TEETH!
tcburnett:“irrepressable temptation”
Sod all, mate. Get a spellchecker. There are multiple mistakes in this post alone! And you dare to suggest the most vicious creature in the world is over there behind that rabbit?
tcburnett:“irrepressable temptation”
Sod all, mate. Get a spellchecker. There are multiple mistakes in this post alone! And you dare to suggest the most vicious creature in the world is over there behind that rabbit?
tcburnett:“irrepressable temptation”
Sod all, mate. Get a spellchecker. There are multiple mistakes in this post alone! And you dare to suggest the most vicious creature in the world is over there behind that rabbit?
“Sod all, mate. Get a spellchecker.”
Shut up! Who are you to talk, Mr. “How many times can I post the same message”?
“And you dare to suggest the most vicious creature in the world is over there behind that rabbit?”
IT IS THE RABBIT! LOOK AT THE BONES! But never mind. After doing further research I must change my vote. The nastiest thing around is clearly that damned mantis shrimp. I may never go diving again just in case one somehow found it’s way here.
See, thought I wanted a pet shark, (with or without a laser on it’s head) but those mantis shrimps are wicked scary, I think I want one of those as a pet now. I vote MANTIS SHRIMP.
"…<snip>…I’Id like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease…a cancer of this planet.
You are a plague… and we …are the cure."
- thought the quote was fitting…
Humans are the most dangerous…we kill for fun, passion, insanity, religious preference, social standing…or in my home state of Texas…“just cause he needed killin’”
No animal is vicious, animals do what they have to do to survive, eat, mate etc. Viciousness is a choice, one that humans make (often), and usually unnecessarily.
Persona Injury Lawyer (who is about to lose a fat settlement)
If you are simply talking about hyper-agressive animals, I must nominate my namesake, the hummingbird. They not only attack other hummers, they will attack almost anything else that intrudes into their territory. I have seen hummers attack and chase hawks (and even a macaw) more than 100 times their own size. It’s not for nothing that the Aztecs took the hummingbird for their god of war, Huizilopochtli.
This just in. http://www2.mybc.com/news/fs.cfm?source_id=CP&id=1135596&top2_page_name=cp_national
A 61 year old man near my hometown is attacked from behind by a couger and kills it with a 3 inch knife.