Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogebam Here. Ask your friends which animal they fear the most, and you'll probably get a myriad of answers. Sharks, snakes, bears, spiders, bees, and take your pick. A sharp teeth, deadly claws, venom, and sheer, size and speed make us few many creatures as a menace. But are the animals we perceive as fearful really the most treacherous?
Not always, Sometimes danger lurks in strange packages. Take, for example, the adorable, bright and tiny poison dart frog, found mostly in tropical forests, This little amphibian actually oozes poison from its back. The toxin from one frog could kill ten humans. And when you're taking a dip in the ocean, everything from jaws to sensationalized media accounts may have you worried about shark attacks, but animals like jellyfish are actually more concerning.
Take the ethereal looking Australian box jellyfish. Each of its sixty tentacles, which can grow to fifteen feet that's four and a half meters long, contains enough toxins to kill sixty humans. And take the hefty hippopotamus, which eats mostly plants and looks cute and cuddly, but don't let that fool you. This giant animal is quite aggressive and widely
considered one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. I don't always recommend watching movie Congo, but there is a hippo attack sequence in there that may be the most accurate part of that film. Other frightening creatures do live up to their hype, however. For example, the saltwater crocodile, which is found in India, Asia and Australia, is a serious predator. It'll attack just about anything, including you, and back in Africa, the lion is just as they say,
incredibly fast and brawny, with tearing teeth and claws. It feeds on weaker mammals and will attack humans if its regular food sources are scarce. Also legitimately fearsome is the polar bear found in the Arctic. It's dangerous to humans largely because it's not naturally afraid of us, unlike most other animals, and we are certainly no match for its burly strength, razor claws and teeth. And let's not forget the king cobra, found in India, China, and other parts
of Asia. It isn't the most venomous snake in the world. That honor goes to the inland typeon but the cobra's extremely concentrated venomous bite can kill even an elephant. All of these animals kill hundreds of people every year, but one animal wins by a landslide in total human carnage. Its bite results in the depths of a million people a year. The most deadly animal in the world is the mosquito. The majority of the deaths that causes are
due to malaria. The World Health Organization estimates that between three hundred and five hundred million cases of malaria occur every year, and that a child dies from malaria every thirty seconds. It's not the mosquito itself that causes the disease, but rather a parasite that the mosquito carries. Not all mosquitoes carry the malaria parasite, only females of the Anopolies genus, which do exist all over the world with the exception
of Antarctica. The mosquito transmitts malaria after biting an infected person and then passes along the parasite to the next person it bites. Malaria is a blood transmitted disease, which means you can't contract it from casual contact with another person because it's transmitted through the blood. You can contract it from a contaminated transfusion or needle, but mosquitoes are primarily to blame for its spread. Malaria is no longer considered a public health issue here in the United States.
The disease virtually disappeared in the nineteen fifties when the National Malaria Eradication Program AM implemented a d d T that's a synthetic pesticide program to control the mosquito population. However, this program saw limited success in the rest of the world. Nations with a temperate climate and seasonal mosquito issues were able to eradicate malaria, but in other countries, resistance to insecticides and drugs, cuts and funding, and the lack of
participation made long term eradication efforts impossible. The United States does still report a few hundred cases of malaria per year, most occurring in travelers returning from areas where it's still a problem. Anti malarial drugs do exist, but there's currently no malaria vaccine affected countries now turned to malaria control rather than eradication. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
refers to these activities as vector control. A vector control means decreasing contact between humans and disease carriers, whatever they might be, on an area by area basis. The a in this case is to cut down on the mosquito parasite population using insecticide treated nets that drape over people's beds, plus indoor spraying and larval control. Insecticide treated bednets in particular can cut mortality rates by the purpose of this
piece isn't to scare you about mosquitoes. There's no need to transfer your paranoia to them, but rather to put things more into perspective. Most sharks, snakes, spiders, and other horror flick animals actively avoid humans, and science can help us prevent deaths from the things like mosquitoes that do seek us out. Today's episode is based on the article which animals kill the most people in the wild on
house toffworks dot Com, written by Deborah Rnka. Brainstuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with hous toff works dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts, My heart Radio visit the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts are where ever you listen to your favorite shows. M