5 ms·

Maxing out my pedantry score, the actual answer is "humans" followed by "snakes". Mosquitos themselves are not dangerous, and malaria parasites are not animals.

r0h1n 12y ago
Okay, I'll bite and try to outmax your pedantry: If a mosquito bite can infect and kill, why isn't a mosquito dangerous? Alternately, if I take your logic that "mosquitoes themselves are not dangerous", why can I not extend that to humans and say human beings themselves are not dangerous?
- masklinn 12y ago
  > If a mosquito bite can infect and kill, why isn't a mosquito dangerous? Because it's not the mosquito itself doing that (as opposed to, say, a rattlesnake), it's a parasite hitching a ride on an "innocent" (of that anyway) mosquito. Much like e.g. bats and henipaviruses, bats are a resevoir species but nobody in their right mind would say that Mark Preston was killed by a fruitbat.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Is there a difference though? A snake is a vehicle for delivering poison, which is a chemical compound disrupting your biological machinery. A mosquito is a vehicle for delivering pieces of biological machinery that disrupt your own biological machinery. The snake kills in the same way the mosquito does. The snake's poison kills in the same way malaria parasites do. Both statements are true, they're just operating on different abstraction levels.
    - masklinn 12y ago
      > Is there a difference though? Yes. > A snake is a vehicle for delivering poison, which is a chemical compound disrupting your biological machinery. The poison is the snake's own weapon and defence, not a hitch-hiker, and poison delivery is part of a snake's normal bite process (if the snake is poisonous). > A mosquito is a vehicle for delivering pieces of biological machinery that disrupt your own biological machinery. No, the mosquito itself delivers some saliva and draws blood, that somebody else takes advantage of this can hardly be ascribed to the mosquito's fault. Again, compare to other reservoirs, or to a dog giving you rabies. The dog didn't kill you, rabies did, the dog was the unwitting carrier of the infection rabies is not a weaponised dog secretion.
bsnape 12y ago
How many humans kill other humans with only their bare hands? Humans themselves are not dangerous, and weapons are not animals.
- deleted 12y ago
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lotsofmangos 12y ago
Well, if you insist on that level of pedantry, malarial parasites are protozoa, which is usually considered to be part of animalia.
- Zarkonnen 12y ago
  Oh right! I tried to figure this out, and thought protozoa were not animals. I withdraw my pedantry. :D
Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
When you're shot dead I'll be sure to point out to the investigating police that you don't consider killers to be dangerous as ultimately it was the gun rather than the killer that caused your death. ;-)
4ndr3vv 12y ago
Sorry to be pedantic, but we're discussing deadliest animals, not dangerous ones.

r0h1n 12y ago

Okay, I'll bite and try to outmax your pedantry: If a mosquito bite can infect and kill, why isn't a mosquito dangerous? Alternately, if I take your logic that "mosquitoes themselves are not dangerous", why can I not extend that to humans and say human beings themselves are not dangerous?

masklinn 12y ago
> If a mosquito bite can infect and kill, why isn't a mosquito dangerous? Because it's not the mosquito itself doing that (as opposed to, say, a rattlesnake), it's a parasite hitching a ride on an "innocent" (of that anyway) mosquito. Much like e.g. bats and henipaviruses, bats are a resevoir species but nobody in their right mind would say that Mark Preston was killed by a fruitbat.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Is there a difference though? A snake is a vehicle for delivering poison, which is a chemical compound disrupting your biological machinery. A mosquito is a vehicle for delivering pieces of biological machinery that disrupt your own biological machinery. The snake kills in the same way the mosquito does. The snake's poison kills in the same way malaria parasites do. Both statements are true, they're just operating on different abstraction levels.
  - masklinn 12y ago
    > Is there a difference though? Yes. > A snake is a vehicle for delivering poison, which is a chemical compound disrupting your biological machinery. The poison is the snake's own weapon and defence, not a hitch-hiker, and poison delivery is part of a snake's normal bite process (if the snake is poisonous). > A mosquito is a vehicle for delivering pieces of biological machinery that disrupt your own biological machinery. No, the mosquito itself delivers some saliva and draws blood, that somebody else takes advantage of this can hardly be ascribed to the mosquito's fault. Again, compare to other reservoirs, or to a dog giving you rabies. The dog didn't kill you, rabies did, the dog was the unwitting carrier of the infection rabies is not a weaponised dog secretion.

bsnape 12y ago

How many humans kill other humans with only their bare hands? Humans themselves are not dangerous, and weapons are not animals.

deleted 12y ago
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lotsofmangos 12y ago

Well, if you insist on that level of pedantry, malarial parasites are protozoa, which is usually considered to be part of animalia.

Zarkonnen 12y ago
Oh right! I tried to figure this out, and thought protozoa were not animals. I withdraw my pedantry. :D

Tyrannosaurs 12y ago

When you're shot dead I'll be sure to point out to the investigating police that you don't consider killers to be dangerous as ultimately it was the gun rather than the killer that caused your death. ;-)

4ndr3vv 12y ago

Sorry to be pedantic, but we're discussing deadliest animals, not dangerous ones.