Many people find them cute at first glance, but it is better to keep their distance.
Most people think that dangerous animals are necessarily exotic species. Venomous snakes, giant spiders and crocodiles often come in mind when you imagine what are the most threatening animals. This received idea is generally reinforced by the media, documentaries and films that highlight these impressive species living in distant and sometimes unknown environments. However, it is not always wild animals that present the greatest risk for humans. Some dangers are hidden closer than you think, among apparently harmless or familiar species.
This is the case of an animal well known to all, which is among the most dangerous on the planet, despite its cute and innocent appearance. Few people would suspect him, and yet he ranks in the top 4 of the most formidable animals for humans according to the Crespo scale. This classification comes from an evaluation method developed by David Duarte Crespo, researcher in life and environmental sciences at the British University of Exeter, and published in April 2024 in the scientific journal Asian Journal of Research in Zoology.
By analyzing data, the researcher concluded that several species are particularly formidable for humans. Among them, stray dogs occupy the fourth position in the ranking. Although they are often crossed in the street and seem harmless, they represent a serious threat. For what ? Because they are the main vectors of rabies, a deadly disease responsible for around 59,000 deaths each year in the world, according to the World Health Organization. Their degree of dangerousness is evaluated at 4, indicating a high and very real risk. The first three places in the classification are occupied by the moats of blood (parasitic dishes), the viper of Russell and in first position the mosquito, which is the main vector of malaria.
Concretely, the Crespo scale assesses the danger of animal species based on two main factors: the size of the species population and the annual number of deaths caused by it. These criteria are then noted on a scale of 1 to 5, each level corresponding to a specific degree of danger (1 for very unlikely, 2 for unlikely, 3 for moderately probable, 4 for probable and 5 for very probable, which means that the risk is high and that the species regularly causes human deaths).