“Crocs” also = multiple species. The biggest killer by far appears to be the Nile Crocodile, but precise statistics are lacking. This table puts attacks at over 300 a year with a 63% mortality rate in attacks ( which would almost certainly be a higher rate than most venomous snake when you factor in “dry bites” - Black Mambas might beat them though ). 2500 deaths however seems unlikely based on those numbers. But let’s assume that is correct.
Hippos do get cited at ~3,000 a year, which is a lot ( though I’m curious where the original citation comes from ).
But very recent studies have indicated that snake bites and fatalities are vastly under-reported in the old Third World. A more recent estimate of mortality in India alone was 46,000/year. Of those the great majority would be by the above ‘Big Four’ - even if those guys only accounted for 30,000 of those fatalities and you then divided that evenly by the four ( but it wouldn’t really work that way of course ), you’d get 7,500/species.
I think any of several species of snake are in the race for the top of the list for vertebrates. I wouldn’t be surprised if they fill out the top five slots.
I once read a book about snakes that listed several reasons why we fear them and ended the list with “and of course there is the fact that a bite from a venomous species can lead to a rapid and dramatic death.”
Thanks guys, I’m going to irrationally check my windows and door locks again and then try to not have nightmares about a dramatic death from the bite of a viper.
…and since I was responding only to the issue of African animal deaths, that’ll do for me.
Nope, worldwide it’d likely be the Russel’s, like Tamerlane said. But unless you have cites more scientific and recent than the work I cited, it’s clear that snakes have crocs, carnivores and large herbivores beaten by at least an order of magnitude, and since puff adders are > 50% of African snakebite fatalities, I’m confident I was right the first time.
I don’t know about other parts of the world, but in Yellowstone, bison lead the tally for direct kills. Yes, ahead of wolves and both species of bear. This is probably mostly due to idiots who think that just because they’re herbivores, they’re harmless.
McDonalds hamburgers are made from a mixture of fatty steer meat and lean cow meat. This allows them to precisely control the fat content, and is less expensive for them. It doesn’t really matter, though, since we’re talking about species here, not sex, and “cow” is also the common general term for Bos taurus.
Why hamburgers and cows? The most major change in diet that could account for obesity epidemic in the last century is the widespread availability and affordability of simple sugars, NOT protein.
A case could be made for locusts, causing massive starvation by competing with man for available food resources. Not as high on the list as mosquitoes, but certainly more than large predatory mammals.
Not really sure how this should be answered. I mean, I saw a chart just the other day showing how bees and mosquitoes have killed more humans than sharks have (I think the chart was made in “defense” of sharks). But bees generally can’t kill you unless you’re especially vulnerable or are hyper-sensitive to their venom or you get stung by 100s or 1000s of them at one time, so far as I know. And mosquitoes? No mosquito alive can kill a human, that I know of. At least not directly. So, to me, those don’t really count. When I think of an animal killing a human I think of one that can actually attack you and stomp on you or tear you to shreds or eat you. Anyway I don’t think this question has been formulated very well and even if it had been in the entire history of human existence is it really possible to know the answer to it?
Just to be clear plague is clearly associated with rats as the semi-stable zoonotic reservoir. The argument has always revolved around whether the rapid transmission throughout Europe during the Black Death was associated with infected rodents spreading the disease. A lot of arguments ( good ones ) have been put forward that particularly in England there just isn’t good evidence for that type of transmission.
The latest info to come out has supported the hypothesis that the Black Death seems to have been at least in part a virulent pneumonic plague outbreak with rapid human-to-human transmission and very high mortality rates. But it is without a doubt that the plague originally started somewhere as rodent-transmitted bubonic plague. It’s the same causative organism, just in different stages of infection.
So those filthy rats ( really their filthy fleas ) did start the ball rolling at some point. And you can’t even blame the poor flea - plague is killing them as well by functionally starving them. Poor little blood-sucking fleas :(.