Isn’t that how AIDS is transmitted? 
Thank you. So far, just about everyone has been interpreting the question to be “Which animal species has killed the most humans?” But I couldn’t help wondering what the answer would be if you interpreted it as “Which individual animal has killed the most humans?”
I want to nominate poisonous snakes in general, and cobras specifically. Range highly populated by humans. I’m gonna google a bit and see if I can find some good sources of informed speculation…
“It appears that agent 6373 has accomplished her mission.”
Dammit. That explains why my harvest of mosquitos out of my garden hasn’t worked out. 
Nope. Crocodiles are about the same (exact figures are hard to find for either) and snakes (and more specifically, puff adders, ) kill many more people directly.
Holy Shit! :eek: Excluding humans, *Dogs *make the top 3?? 
:eek:
Bad Dog! Bad Dog! :rolls up newspaper:
Wouldn’t that be “Agent 31573”? She was a cow, wasn’t she?
I don’t want to belabor this point, but I’m reminded of a conversation my wife had with her co-workers many years ago.
She was working in a bookstore at the time; all of her fellow employees were certainly educated and knowledgeable individuals.
Somehow, the topic of conversation was birds, and when my wife happened to use the term “animal” in the course of referring to them, she was set upon by the others. “What do you mean? A bird isn’t an animal!”
They were all quite insistent upon this point. My wife came home in a daze and asked if she was crazy or something. I had to assure her this was not the case.
Uh, so now, as it was then…
We’re excluding carriers of disease. Any research into this claim shows that nearly all deaths by dog bites happen outside of industrialized countries through rabies. In the US, where dogs are the #1 pet, about 20 people a year die from non-rabies dog bites.
Look up a book called “The Man Eater of Kumoan” by Jum Corbett.
He was a hunter who had to track down dangerous tigers and leopards in India, some who killed over 400 people.
So I would say leopards, tigers, lions, and then wolves. Especially European wolves.
The internets are full of noise on the subject, but most sites report 2900 deaths by hippo each year, 2500 or less for crocs, less than a 1000 for puff adders. If you lump together all snakes they may win.
Sorry, it was a classical reference.
That still doesn’t prove that the cow is a leading cause of obesity. In a regular McDonald’s hamburger, you get more calories (and sodium) from the bun than the meat:
http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/product_nutrition.sandwiches.256.hamburger.html
Not going to quibble about crocs, like I said numbers are not exact, but actual detailed research done recently gets somewhere in the multiple tens of thousands for snakes, as the numbers have been shown to be grossly underestimated historically. And that means tens of thousands for puff adders, given the research cited, combined with the fact that puff adders are responsible for by far the majority of snakebite fatalities in Africa.
Because the hamburgers are just a crafty vehicle for cheese (Also a cow-based assault on the human cardiovascular system)
The Puff Adder probably takes first place in Africa, but it appears that snakebite is a worse issue in southern Asia generally due to the greater population density, particularly in India. For that reason I’d be inclined to stick with the aforementioned Russell’s Viper, simply because of the wide distribution in that area.
Of course the Saw-Scaled Viper crosses into both continents and is another big problem. But on average I’d likely still favor the Russell’s, even with the lack of really good numbers. But granted it is a bit of a supposition.
If you include the whole suborder Serpentes then you have the top contender. I don’t know if all of Carinvora beat their record. But for one species Puff Adder isn’t going to do it.
My guess: amoebas.