What animal kills the most per year?

6 fatalities per year

Every summer, we hear about shark attacks in the news, but the entire world only sees an average of six human deaths per year.

According to research compiled by Bill Gates and published on Gates Notes, that makes sharks No. 20 on the list of the 20 animals most deadly to humans.

This boy's surfboard reads "Whose turn next?" during a 2015 demonstration on Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean. The day before, a 13-year-old surfer was killed by a bull shark.

10 fatalities per year

Wolves are typically fearful of humans and avoid people when possible, but occasionally, due to rabies, fear and even provocation by victims, wolves can attack.

Attacks on humans are rare, but attacks on domestic animals such as dogs and livestock are more common. French farmers protested in 2014, demanding their government take action to stop wolf attacks on their sheep.

40 fatalities per year

These jellyfish, called Pacific Sea Nettles, possess an extremely painful sting. Fortunately for humans, that sting is rarely fatal. Stings from species such as the box jellyfish can be deadly.

Stings by the Portuguese man o' war can also be deadly, but this gelatinous terror is, technically speaking, not a true jellyfish, but a colony of smaller organisms.

50 fatalities per year

Tiger attacks have claimed many lives over the years in India, and attacks occasionally happen in zoos, including a fatal incident at the San Francisco zoo in 2007. A Bengal tiger famously attacked magician Roy Horn, of Siegfried & Roy, during a performance in Las Vegas, leaving him partially paralyzed.

A boy was mauled to death by a tiger at the Delhi Zoo in 2014 when he either jumped or fell into an enclosure.

60 fatalities per year

Bees, wasps, hornets and other flying insects are consistently among the deadliest animals in the United States. Frequently, these deaths occur when people allergic to the stings experience anaphylactic shock.

In some parts of the world, people actively seek out apitherapy, a practice that uses bee stings to treat conditions from arthritis to cancer.

100 fatalities per year

Lions are predators, and humans, if available, are easy prey. Reports of lions killing poachers and tourists are not uncommon.

This lion is seen feasting on a buffalo, which can be a much harder kill than an unsuspecting human.

100 fatalities per year

Elephants are herbivores, but these giant creatures can be very dangerous if agitated.

In regions such as eastern India, humans and elephants have come into fatal contact as urban development encroaches on the elephants' habitat.

500 fatalities per year

Hippos are notoriously aggressive and can easily capsize a small boat and kill its occupants if the hippo feels threatened.

Jean Ducuing, a French zoo director, was photographed in 1995 playing with a hippo named Komir. Ducuing was killed four years later when the same hippo rushed out of his enclosure.

1,000 fatalities per year

Crocodiles are fast and aggressive and therefore very dangerous to humans. But in this village in Burkina Faso, crocodiles are revered for, as local legend says, leading women from the drought-stricken village to a hidden pond.

In Indonesia, an angry mob attacked crocodiles with axes after one of the animals killed a local man.

1,600 fatalities per year

Humans can contract any one of several species of tapeworm from eating raw or undercooked meat such as pork or beef. Undercooked fish can also contain the parasite's eggs.

Tapeworm is one of those infections that can exist inside your body with few to no symptoms. 

2,700 fatalities per year

Experts estimate that one-sixth of Earth's population is infected with some kind of roundworm. 

Untreated, the roundworm parasite can migrate from the small intestine to other organs including the liver, lungs and heart.

3,500 fatalities per year

Tsetse flies, found in sub-Saharan Africa, carry a species of dangerous organisms called trypanosomes which, when transmitted to humans through the fly's bite, cause deadly sleeping sickness.

Sleeping sickness got its name from the second phase of the parasitic infection. Infected people experience daytime sleeping episodes as well as insomnia at night. Untreated, sleeping sickness will result in death after several years.

3,500 fatalities per year

Scorpions have venomous stingers that inject neurotoxins and enzyme inhibitors into their prey.

In addition to killing scorpions that make it into their homes, humans in some regions dine on the arachnid, including this woman in Mexico City.

4,400 fatalities per year

The freshwater snail is responsible for transmitting a deadly parasitic disease called schistosomiasis. The disease is most commonly found in Africa, Asia and South America.

If a person's skin comes in contact with water where these snails live, that person can contract schistosomiasis. The parasite damages the liver, intestines and spleen. 

8,000 fatalities per year

Also known as assassin bugs, these insects can transmit the parasite that causes Chagas disease through their bite. Unlike many other dangerous insects, the kissing bug can be found in the United States.

Most people who have Chagas disease do not know that they are infected, but the chronic illness causes digestive issues and heart damage. It is also responsible for a large number of stillbirths in Brazil.

17,400 fatalities per year

Man's best friend can also be very deadly.

In 2007, this 4-year-old pit bull in the Philippines mauled a girl and killed her grandmother in their home in the suburbs of Manila. The man, a local veterinarian, planned to rehabilitate the dog.

24,200 fatalities per year

This tiny fly can transmit a parasitic disease called leishmaniasis. The disease comes in three main forms: cutaneous, mucocutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis, the deadliest of the three.

This Afghan woman is seen being treated for cutaneous leishmaniasis. Afghanistan saw a major outbreak of this form of the parasitic disease in 2009, which is disfiguring but treatable. Visceral leishmaniasis, on the other hand, is fatal in 95 percent of untreated cases.

60,000 fatalities per year

The common lancehead snake, also known as the barba amarilla pit viper, has some of the deadliest venom of any snake in the world. This snake is native to South America.

The Malayan pit viper's venom is only fatal in about 2 percent of cases. But victims of this snake's bite often have to have limbs amputated due to tissue necrosis.

580,000 fatalities per year

From shootings to car accidents to military actions, humans are responsible for more than a half-million human fatalities every year.

Seventeen people died when a former student opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in Feb. 2018.

830,000 fatalities per year

When most people think of mosquito-borne illness, they think of malaria, but Zika, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis and yellow fever also can be fatal. 

This photo was taken in Ghana in May 2018 as workers sprayed a new insecticide designed to control and prevent malaria around a local home.

The World Health Organization reports malaria killed 445,000 people in 2016.