![\"What](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/w=3093.png\")
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The biggest killers, by far, are mosquitoes. They have been one of our biggest threats for millennia<\/a>, and still kill approximately 760,000 people every year.2<\/a> Over 80% of those deaths are the result of malaria<\/a>, which is transmitted and spread by the Anopheles mosquito. Malaria still kills close to half a million children<\/a> every year.<\/p>\n Another 100,000 people die every year from other mosquito-borne diseases, including dengue fever and yellow fever (spread by the mosquito species Aedes aegypti) and Japanese encephalitis.<\/p>\n Almost all deaths from other animals are caused by just two types: mosquitoes and snakes.<\/p>\n Snakes are one of the most common phobias, and you can see why. They are the second largest killers. The death toll from venomous snakes is surprisingly uncertain, as many of these deaths occur in rural areas where death records are often poor.3<\/a> But the figure is likely to be around 100,000 deaths per year. That means snakes kill more than all animals below them on the list combined.4<\/a><\/p>\n Most of those remaining deaths are caused by dogs, the animals that humans have grown to love as domesticated pets. The majority are due to rabies<\/a>, rather than direct wounds.<\/p>\n Near the bottom of the list, we reach the animals that dominate our nightmares \u2014 sharks and wolves. They make for gripping headlines and blockbuster films<\/a>. But in reality, shark and wolf attacks are very rare.<\/p>\n Of course, they don\u2019t kill fewer people because they\u2019re less dangerous. We\u2019d rather be locked in a room with a mosquito than a lion. The real difference is exposure: it\u2019s much easier to avoid large predators than it is to avoid disease-carrying insects and parasites.5<\/a><\/p>\n The good news is that most deaths from animals \u2014 especially the largest killers \u2014 are preventable. We have bednets<\/a> and insecticide sprays to reduce exposure to mosquitoes, and medication to treat malaria if someone does become infected. New techniques, such as the Wolbachia method<\/a>, have been developed to stop the spread of dengue fever. Antivenoms can often save<\/a> someone from a potentially fatal snakebite.6<\/a><\/p>\n The problem is that not everyone has access<\/a> to these preventive and treatment methods when they need them.7<\/a> If these small killers received the same global attention as large predators, more effort might go into stopping them. That is one reason why these comparisons are useful: as a reminder of what people are actually dying from, and where the most lives could be saved.<\/p>\n There are other diseases \u2014 in particular, neglected tropical diseases<\/a> \u2014 that could also be dramatically reduced with better access to treatment.<\/p>\n In many regions, deaths from mosquitoes have decreased dramatically. Malaria was once prevalent in countries that are now free of it<\/a>. If we could achieve this in all parts of the world, the number of deaths caused by other animals would be almost six times smaller.8<\/a><\/p>\n If we were to also eliminate deaths from snakes through the use of antivenoms and better diagnostics, the death toll would be again reduced by almost two-thirds.9<\/a><\/p>\n Acknowledgments<\/p>\n Many thanks to Max Roser and Edouard Mathieu for editorial feedback and comments on this article, and Pablo Rosado for technical support.<\/p>\n Continue reading on Our World in DataCite this work<\/p>\n Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this article, please also cite the underlying data sources. This article can be cited as:<\/p>\n Hannah Ritchie and Fiona Spooner (2026) – \u201cWhat are the world\u2019s deadliest animals, and can we protect ourselves against them?\u201d Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https:\/\/archive.ourworldindata.org\/20260309-000239\/deadliest-animals.html’ [Online Resource] (archived on March 9, 2026).<\/p>\n BibTeX citation<\/p>\n @article{owid-deadliest-animals, All visualizations, data, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license<\/a>. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.<\/p>\n The data produced by third parties and made available by Our World in Data is subject to the license terms from the original third-party authors. We will always indicate the original source of the data in our documentation, so you should always check the license of any such third-party data before use and redistribution.<\/p>\n
\n author = {Hannah Ritchie and Fiona Spooner},
\n title = {What are the world\u2019s deadliest animals, and can we protect ourselves against them?},
\n journal = {Our World in Data},
\n year = {2026},
\n note = {https:\/\/archive.ourworldindata.org\/20260309-000239\/deadliest-animals.html}
\n}![\"Our](\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/owid-logo.svg\"){kind=logo}
Reuse this work freely<\/p>\n