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Which apex predator is the most overrated threat to humans?

by YPB Team

Reputations built by films and folklore, measured against the actual casualty records. One entry on this list genuinely deserves the fear.

  1. Great White Shark — ranked #11
    Great White Shark
    Jaws made it the ocean's villain; unprovoked fatal attacks worldwide stay in the single digits most years.
    1000pts
  2. Anaconda — ranked #22
    Anaconda
    Star of its own disaster-movie subgenre, with no reliably documented fatal attack on an adult human.
    551pts
  3. Bull Shark — ranked #33
    Bull Shark
    Blamed for river attacks well beyond what the records support, though it is the shark most likely to meet swimmers.
    494pts
  4. Hippopotamus — ranked #44
    Hippopotamus
    Often named the most dangerous large animal in Africa, which makes it the rare entry here that earns its reputation.
    494pts
  5. Wolf — ranked #55
    Wolf
    Centuries of folklore against a near-zero record of fatal attacks on people in North America.
    494pts
  6. Polar Bear — ranked #66
    Polar Bear
    Widely called the only bear that hunts people, with roughly twenty fatal attacks recorded in a century.
    428pts
  7. Piranha — ranked #77
    Piranha
    Hollywood's stripping-a-cow-to-bone fish, in practice a mostly scavenging omnivore.
    350pts
  8. Tarantula — ranked #88
    Tarantula
    The default movie spider, with venom milder than a bee sting.
    350pts
  9. Grizzly Bear — ranked #99
    Grizzly Bear
    The animal Americans fear most in the backcountry, responsible for a small handful of deaths a year worldwide.
    350pts
  10. Gorilla — ranked #1010
    Gorilla
    The original movie monster silhouette, and a largely vegetarian animal that avoids confrontation.
    350pts
  11. Komodo Dragon — ranked #1111
    Komodo Dragon
    A genuinely dangerous lizard with a reputation far larger than its handful of recorded fatalities.
    257pts
  12. Golden Eagle — ranked #1212
    Golden Eagle
    Endlessly credited with carrying off children, and physically incapable of lifting one.
    257pts
  13. Wolverine — ranked #1313
    Wolverine
    A twenty-kilogram weasel with a reputation for taking on bears, and no record of attacking people.
    0pts
  14. Orca — ranked #1414
    Orca
    Called the killer whale, and has never killed a human in the wild.
    0pts
  15. Cougar — ranked #1515
    Cougar
    North America's ghost cat, averaging well under one human fatality a year across the continent.
    0pts

#Nature45#Animals43#Predators4#Myths1

Comments

Hikers fear the grizzly more than anything else, and it kills very few people a year: https://youpick.best/articles/bear-ranked-many-ways

YP
ypb-team·9h ago·
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