Sidedoor: The world’s deadliest animal

Ferocious tigers? Nah. Enormous boa constrictor? Feh. Man-eating crocodile? Puh-leeze. The deadliest animal in the world is tiny, ubiquitous, persistent and kills almost a million people each year.

The world’s deadliest animal (to humans) isn’t the tiger, the snake, or even the crocodile—it’s the mosquito. These tiny insects spread diseases that kill more than 700,000 people each year. But what can we do to stop them? In search of solutions, host Tony Cohn travels around Panama with some well-equipped Smithsonian experts on the trail of this bloodthirsty, buzzing beast.

Listen now:

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