Have you ever wondered what the most deadly animal is in the United States? Is it a predator like a mountain lion, bear or shark? Is it a poisonous snake or insect? The answer might surprise you.
We’ve pulled together data from several injury and fatality databases to pull together a list of the deadliest animals in the United States.
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The majority of the fatality figures in this infographic can be found in the Underlying Cause of Death, 1999-2009 report from the National Center for Health Statistics database. We ran a search on causes of death and found the codes linked to animal-related fatalities. Specifically:
| Code* |
Cause of Death |
Deaths |
| V80 |
Rider or occupant injured by fall from or being thrown from animal or animal-drawn vehicle in noncollision accident |
867 |
| W55 |
Bitten or struck by other mammals |
798 |
| X23 |
Contact with hornets, wasps and bees |
613 |
| W54 |
Bitten or struck by dog |
309 |
| W57 |
Bitten or stung by nonvenomous insect and other nonvenomous arthropods |
107 |
| X25 |
Contact with other specified venomous arthropods |
83 |
| X21 |
Contact with venomous spiders |
81 |
| W59 |
Bitten or crushed by other reptiles |
77 |
| X20 |
Contact with venomous snakes and lizards |
68 |
| W56 |
Contact with marine animal |
11 |
| W58 |
Bitten or struck by crocodile or alligator |
9 |
| X29 |
Contact with unspecified venomous animal or plant |
8 |
| X22 |
Contact with scorpions |
6 |
| X24 |
Contact with centipedes and venomous millipedes (tropical) |
4 |
| W53 |
Bitten by rat |
3 |
| X26 |
Contact with venomous marine animals and plants |
1 |
| X28 |
Contact with other specified venomous plants |
1 |
* We’ve included the code so you can see exactly what data we pulled
The National Center for Health Statistics database is full of helpful tables like the one above. For example if you wanted to know how Cattle & Bull ranked so highly on the list above, you could check out this report from just 4 states over 5 years.
Wikipedia also maintains fairly detailed list of animal-related deaths worldwide as well as those that occur in the United States.
The earliest sharks date from more than 420 million years ago, before the time of the dinosaurs! The 400 species of modern sharks have evolved in various ways and scientists have classified them into the 8 major groups shown in this graphic. See how sharks fit into this family tree, from the most well-known sharks like the great white and tiger sharks, to the bizarre lesser-known sharks like the frilled shark, goblin shark and cookiecutter shark.
