Outside of humans, of course.
Maybe mosquitos.
Probably should exclude bacteria and viruses too, and secondary carriers like the rats who carried bubonic plague.
I’m going to go with cows. Hamburgers lead to obesity which leads to heart disease which is the #1 killer in the world today.
I think that you would have to go with what primitive man boasted the most about killing. So it would be either Lions or Tigers or Bears oh my. Depending on where you lived.
Second mosquitos.
Mosquitoes or flies of some sort.
Another vote for mosquitoes here.
Although it could be argued that rats killed a larger proportion of the human population than mosquitoes back in the day (The Black Death and all that)
I considered that, but across history the mosquitos (or similar insects) would have been more successful at killing us.
Technically, it’s not the mosquitoes though, it’s what they carried. It’s kind of like saying the drug epidemic was caused by syringes.
Black Death - 70 to 200 million
Malaria - hundreds of thousands every year since forever.
Mosquitoes win.
That’s true. It’s more like the guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people thing. Or going back in time it would be sticks don’t kill people, the pointy end kills people.
There’s going to be some other animal that directly killed the most humans. That could get tricky to figure out. For instance I’ve see the claim that hippopotami are the biggest direct killers in Africa, despite the presence of lions and other large predators. Hippos are just really big, territorial, and don’t get scared away.
Nevermind. I was going to suggest this question isn’t really amenable to a decisive factual answer, but the conversation is arriving at a pretty good consensus, so I’ll withrdraw the observation.
Presumably not a serious answer, but all the same: hamburgers aren’t especially high in fat.
Hamburger is only about 14% fat. Chicken, for instance, is 13% fat. Shoulder of lamb, 20%.
Hippos are just really big, territorial, and don’t get scared away.
And they sink boats, which gives them the opportunity to get more than one at a time.
Totally serious. I think people are thinking of animals that kill a few thousand a year, I’m thinking obesity kills in the millions.
That’s because the water is part of their territory. They’re mostly found in or near water, but they still end up being the deadliest (maybe, I haven’t done the work to confirm it). They’re stealthy in the water, and I’ve heard on land they are surprisingly fast.
Yeah, but why single out cows, or hamburgers? They’re not especially fattening. Look at the McDonald’s menu: there are more calories in a portion of fries than there are in a typical burger. Eating hamburgers does not cause obesity.
Bad eating habits are surely humans killing themselves, not through any direct action of the animals.
Unlike with mosquitoes.
I think mosquitoes win the kill all humans contest.
According to WHO, AIDS is the 6th leading killer in the world with 1.6 million deaths in 2010-2011.
I knew it was those damn dirty apes.
Weird that everyone is making guesses. Bill Gates justpublished a blog article on this last week, with an infographic and everything.
The answer is mosquitoes, followed by humans, snakes and dogs.