• Instigate@aussie.zone
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    1 month ago

    Aren’t mosquitoes the most dangerous animal on earth? I guess it depends what measure you’re using, and how you define ‘animal’. If it’s how many human deaths they cause, mosquitoes are at the top of the list and humans are second, with many others coming in before hippos. I can’t really think of another relevant measure. Even if you disregard invertebrates as being animals, I’m pretty sure that dogs and crocodiles kill many more humans than hippos each year.

    Sure, they’re bloody dangerous, but I can’t think of a single way of measuring ‘most dangerous animals in the world’ that puts hippos at the top of the list. I’m happy to be corrected though.

    • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      Mosquitoes are just the transfer vector, virus do the killing. Virus are not animals and it’s debatable if they are even alive.
      I wanted to link to The Merry Flea poem here, but could only find a bad youtube video of it, so be warned

      • Soggy@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Guns are just the transfer vector for bullets and the hippos are just a transfer vector for physics. The spread of malaria (as one example) is directly caused by mosquitos and nobody serious would argue that point.

    • gray@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      Maybe based on the number of humans killed per animal? I don’t know either