Excluding humans, what is the deadliest creature/thing in the world?

How old is your child?

@galicalled, 13…thanks :)

If your child happens to be a serious young person, then I would go with Crocodile. They will tear you up!

If you think your kid can handle it, I would say that HIV/AIDS is the most dangerous thing. in the world.

The Sea Wasp according to extreme science.

What about starvation? I think that probably takes a pretty large toll on human lives (not to mention, animals too.)

Oh! Philosophical answer! The deadliest thing: Ignorance. (and cheap wine)

@Sara; is he prone to nightmares? A 13-year old male can be mature or still rather childlike.

Great white shark, electric eel, stinging jelly fish, pirhanas, hungry members of the large cat family, poisonous snakes and spiders, wild boars, hippos, rhinos, water buffalo – if you are sticking to the animal kingdom.

Under many circumstances, severe weather in all its forms can be deadly; avalanches, sand storms, flash flooding, lightening strikes, driving too fast on ice, DUI, hurricanes, typhoons, tornados, being at sea in a severe storm of any kind….

Irukandji Jellyfish

I also see that the cone snail can kill you in under 4 minutes. There are other creatures on that page too, but the cone snail kinda tripped me out.

Here are some others too.

I was just thinking of Uber’s uber aquatic creature.

Box Jellyfish(most venomous animal in the world)
Blue Ring Octopus
Stonefish(most venomous fish)
Hippos
Sea Snakes
Cone Snails
Mosquitos (all the infectious diseases they can carry)
and of course, my little buddy the Peacock Mantis Shrimp (who i just found out is actually a female, she laid eggs)

@uberbatman That is one crazy looking shrimp! And when I lived in Japan we got warned about those Blue Ring Octopi. Scary stuff.

@Uber; so you can no longer call him her Vlad?

The number one killer in the world is dirty water. Common diarrhoeal diseases transmitted through contaminated drinking water kill 1.8 million people per year (source)

@tWrex they actually eat mantis shrimp over in japan

@gail yea…i dont really know, i mean ive been calling him her Vlad for the past seven months now, so its kinda weird to switch, but i now know that its a girl. Is there a girl variant of that name?

Vladette? ... or Vladetta (kind of sounds like vendetta, ette meaning little.

Vladis?

Ah i got it Vladimira ^_^

or Vladys and the Vladellas

As in Martha and the Vladellas? I like Vladys!
I honestly didn’t see that before you wrote it, gail. Are we both getting punchy?

Depends on how you define deadly. Are we talking sheer numbers of dead? If so, I’d think infections, in all their various forms would be right up there. If you’re speaking of speed of infliction of mortality, then certainly the guillotine ranks quite high. If, however, you’re speaking of gruesome methods of inflicting mortality, then this might be the deadliest creature on earth.

@Poser is it bad that i actually like that song?

My ex boss!

@uber: just so Vladys likes it too.

I’m surprised that no one has mentioned “Little Boy”.
unless it was on the YouTube link that won’t play on my iPhone.

@Seesul—Actually, Fat Man and Little Boy combined weren’t as deadly as the firebombings leading up to the nukes.

@uberbatman I never saw that on the menu! Either that or I wasn’t being observant – which is probably the more likely answer. Kinda glad though. If I woulda seen that on my plate I may have freaked. I woulda ate it though!

@tWrex evidently they have a taste similar to lobster except are much better. They eat them in Italy as well.

There’s always the Song of The Count!

Vladys Knight & The Pips

the black mamba snake is a serious contender.

“Half the human beings who have ever died, perhaps as many as 45 billion people, have been killed by female mosquitoes (the males only bite plants).
Mosquitoes carry more than a hundred potentially fatal diseases, including malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, encephalitis, filariasis, and elephantiasis. Even today, they kill one person every twelve seconds.
Amazingly, nobody had any idea that mosquitoes were dangerous until the end of the nineteenth century. In 1877 the British doctor Sir Patrick Manson—known as “Mosquito” Manson—proved that elephantiasis was caused by mosquito bites.
Seventeen years later, in 1894, it occurred to him that malaria might also be caused by mosquitoes.”The Book of General Ignorance

More info from the book

The Komodo Dragon is another deadly animal as there is no recovery for the poor victim who gets a bite dies of infection as their mouth is full of virulent bacteria. The good news though scientists believe they can use this saliva to produce antibacterial products for human use..

Thank you all for bailing me out. I appreciate your taking the time to give some great answers!

@gail, no he doesn’t really have nightmares, normally when he does, it about people. thx…

This thread has made me afraid of life. Well done, folks.

Oh no! Are you okay? Do you need to talk?

shadling – there’s something under your bed! j/k

Never mind that… there are creatures in my bed! There are tiny microorganisms everywhere! Gah! What if they can kill me?!? I’m to you to dieeeeeeee!

Descent into madness initiated.

The deadliest thing that has ever happened on Earth, I think, was the crash of the meteor that is said to have ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Thousand of species eradicated at once.But if you exclude events of extra-terrestrial origins, the deadliest thing on Earth is probably the Earth itself, causing earthquakes and tsunamis, like the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake (225 000 people killed, and probably millions, if not billions, of animals).

the box jelly fish or the infamous banana spider aka wondering spider but at 13 i would say something cool like a shark or snakes….

Botulinum Toxin, as quoted from listverse “It is so deadly that a mere two pounds (roughly 1kg) of the stuff is enough to kill the entire human population. It is so deadly that it is potentially useful as a biological weapon”