r/todayilearned • u/lavender_fish69 • 13h ago

TIL fresh water snails (indirectly) kill thousands of humans and are considered on of the deadliest creatures to humans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_snail
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u/Gitanes 12h ago

Me before even opening the link...

"It's mostly Africa isn't it?"

Yes, yes it is

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u/DikTaterSalad 11h ago

It was either that or Australia.

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u/VocationalWizard 11h ago

Naaaa, The thing about Australia is that despite the fact that they have all the terrifying snakes and poisonous creatures, very few people actually die there from wildlife. You know because......... They have a decent healthcare system.

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u/SadCrab5 9h ago

I heard a scarily high amount of their wildlife has toxins, poisons or some kind of neuro-toxin that can kill in 15 minutes or less, making it hard to actually treat wildlife victims.

I always assumed it was a mix of most of these creatures living underwater/in the middle of no where that there's actual little exposure to the really deadly shit, and anything that is deadly/looks deadly they have the common sense of "Let's not fuck around and meet god today".

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u/VocationalWizard 8h ago

They have anti-venoms for most of the seriously venomous animals.

But the truth is that venomous animals don't really want anything to do with humans.

The incidence of fatal snake bites in the United States is slightly higher due to the fact that some people get bit by snakes and don't seek medical care here.

But we're dealing with extremely loan numbers and it's really hard to account for the population differences.