What animal is the most dangerous in the world?

You could genuinely make the argument for, and say, that humans and mosquitos are at the top of the list, but we are not going to go that route in this article. Instead of these, that are always given as answers, we choose to talk about the freshwater snail. You heard me correctly. We choose to speak on the dangers of the Gastropodia animal that plays its role as the absolute best host to a flatworm parasite that goes by the name “Flukes”. The specific type of fluke that is usually transmitted by these snails is called Schistosoma and they can be easily transferred from the snails to humans in no time at all. The addition of these parasites to the human body and nearly always causes an illness called schistosomiasis or more readily known as “Snail Fever”.

Yes, mosquitos kill up to around a million people a year by transferring things such as malaria. Yes, malaria is generally considered as the most devastation parasitic disease as far as numbers go. However, usually people don’t think of snails in this way and that certainly lends its hand to being much more dangerous to humans when you speak about the individual in question possibly being willing to touch the animal. No one wants to pick up or touch a living mosquito. We spray for them, use netting, and other fancy things to avoid being around them as much as we can. On the other hand, if you see a snail; there is a chance that you may think it’s cute and want to pick it up. If you do this, there is actually a pretty high chance that you can be on the receiving end of a flatworm parasite that takes the lives of around 200,000 people every year.

What Happens to you:

Well, a couple of days after you get infected by the parasite that was on your new cute little snail friend, you can start to see a rash forming. You will start to have itchy skin, and eventually you will also have symptoms similar to the flu such as a cough, fever, chills, and muscle achiness. These later symptoms usually start after a month or two from the initial infection time. You have to be incredibly diligent, however, because the CDC says that most people don’t even show symptoms for the first month or two. If you do have the symptoms maybe you can get checked out pretty fast, but if you don’t have these symptoms, it will be exceedingly difficult to tell that anything is even wrong. It is best just not touching any snails in the first place, because these little guys are sneaky with how they get you. That is the main reason why we pick them as the most dangerous (uniquely) in the world. You don’t even know they are dangerous until BOOM!

Side note, there are eggs that are made by the parasites once they are inside of your body. These eggs are actually the reason that you have a systemic reaction, not due to the actual worms themselves. These eggs cause scaring and damage to many different important organs in the body such as the bladder and the liver. Once you have been diagnosed, there is a drug that can be given to you to help kill the worms and rid your body of the infection causing nonsense. However, if you don’t get this done in time, it can absolutely lead to death the same way it does to over 200,000 individuals each year.

Recap & Summary:

Taking into consideration the fact that humans are animals, and we kill other humans to the tune of over 400,000 per year on average, we already have heard this story for ages. You also know a lot about how mosquitos provide an unfortunate increased chance of interacting with a deadly illness when you otherwise wouldn’t have. They can be seen as the cause of up to one million deaths per year. While these are impressive numbers, we think that a scarier animal is one that doesn’t have big sharp jaws of an alligator or ferocious muscles like that of a rhino. Instead, we believe that the humble little freshwater snail is among the most dangerous animals in the world due to its harmless appearance and the view we hold of them in our society. They inadvertently sneak up on you as one of the most potent killers in the world when it comes to objective numbers, and they do it in a way that is often times silent and untraceable until it is too late. You certainly do not want to try to make friends with a snail that you find in any random region of the world as it may provide you with a lot of troubles in the health variety.

They aren’t poisonous. They don’t have big sharp teeth. The aren’t large and muscular. They aren’t fast at all. You would never assume that this slimy little animal could cause such damage to you and 199,999 other people in the world every year if you choose to get a little too close to them. This is exactly what makes them so dangerous and places them firmly towards the top of our list as the most dangerous animal in the world. Hopefully you read this article and take it into consideration the t=next time you come across one of these little guys. They are cute to look at from a certain distance, but I know one thing as a fact; I will not be picking one up any time soon. Keeping parasites out of my body is king of a priority in my life.

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this article! : )