The deadliest animal in the world is smaller than a pencil eraser and weighs around two-thousandths of a gram — less than the weight of a single raindrop. Every year, it kills an estimated 700,000 people…
— from “In the U.S., the world’s deadliest animal is on the move” by Shannon Osaka, in the Washington Post, July 1, 2023
Culicidae culicinea. The mosquito.
Innocently killing hundreds of thousands of people every year, by infecting them with an obligate parasite of the genus Plasmodium.
I say, “innocently”, because I assume the mosquito is merely having dinner, and has no idea she is injecting her host with a potentially fatal parasite.
90% of the people suffering from malaria live in Africa. But last month, “five cases of locally transmitted malaria” were discovered in Texas and Florida. In other words, these five infected people didn’t travel abroad to catch malaria, which is the typical method of getting infected if you’re an American.
This is ‘home-grown’ malaria.
Malaria used to be a common ailment in the eastern and southern U.S., back in the 1800s. Then we invented spray-on mosquito repellent, and Culicidae culicinea was compelled to stick her proboscis into some other animal.
We’re talking here about the female Culicidae culicinea, because the male mosquito survives on flower nectar and typically lives only about 5 days, having as much sex as possible during his brief existence. The female, meanwhile, converts her bloody meal into eggs, and then heads out for another roll in the hay (with a different husband) and another feast of tainted blood.
One good thing about the recent drought in the American West: fewer mosquitos.
I bet, right about now, Texas and Florida are jealous of our lack of rain. (Among other things they’re probably jealous about.)
Technically, reporter Shannon Osaka is correct about the world’s deadliest animal. 700,000 deaths is a big number. (Although not even close to the 7 million caused by the COVID virus. But a virus is not technically an ‘animal’, as we’ve learned over the past couple of years.)
As I suggested, however, Culicidae culicinea is basically an innocent party. She’s not trying to kill anyone; she just wants to have as many children as possible.
The world’s second-most-deadly animal is Homo sapiens, a common and widespread species of primate. A great ape characterized by bipedalism and high intelligence, and a nasty habit of occasionally killing other Homo sapiens.
Not quite so innocent as the mosquito.
Last year, 2022, Homo sapiens engaged in wars and conflicts that caused the death of an estimated 283,000 soldiers and civilians.
At this rate, we might just catch up to Culicidae culicinea at some point, in the not-too-distant future.
The World Health Organization recently approved a couple of new vaccines to help fight malaria.
But there is no known vaccine against war.
I imagine we would all settle for a spray-on repellent?