Great Uncle Fred? Simon my brother and I were watching tigers on telly and he said that a tiger would beat a lion in a fight and I said why was the lion the king of the jungle then and he said it`s a different jungle and the tiger is much bigger. Simon is older than me and he might be right but I want to know this - which is the most dangerous animal of all? (Jed, Spring 2008)

There are quite a few different ways to answer that question, Jed. The most accurate way might be to say - man. Man, whose wars have led to the deaths of at least 200 million people in the last 100 years, who has poisoned the planet and exterminated countless other species, who will always be thinking how to exploit you or how to steal your territory or how best to cook you, is, surely, the most dangerous animal the world has ever known. But let`s pretend that man is not an animal. In that case, well, the poison dart frog of South America is dangerous, and has been called the most dangerous animal in the world; its skin secretions are more than 400 times as toxic as the venom of a king cobra. But how many people come across poison dart frogs? Not many. To be truly considered dangerous you have to spread yourself around a bit. The seven most dangerous animals in Africa are thought to be, from seventh to first, the desert locust (because of the crops it destroys), lions, crocodiles, elephants, buffaloes, hippopotamuses, and mosquitoes. Mosquitoes and house flies are said by many to be the most dangerous animals in the world, because of the diseases they spread. More than three million deaths a year are supposed to be caused by these buzzing dangers - imagine if that many people were being killed by hippoes! (It often surprises people that hippoes are considered the second most dangerous animals in Africa, but they can get very cross and, although vegetarian, have been known to bite people`s heads off.) However, although it might be technically correct to say that the mosquito is the most dangerous animal in the world, our reaction to seeing one, especially if we had had an injection against malaria, would not be proportionate to that title. If we saw a crocodile perhaps... But all these contenders are being weighed up by how dangerous they are to man. That is perhaps not the point. Perhaps the most dangerous animal in the world is one that can attack, kill and devour animals twice its size. It has such an appetite that it can eat the equivalent of its own weight around every three hours, and it burns off energy so fast that if it gets no food it can starve to death in less than a day. Any ideas, Jed? Well, the fiercest fighter on earth, and the most voracious predator, is the shrew, the cute-looking common shrew, less than half an ounce of absolutely determined gobbler. Leave him in cage with a rat, come back later, and the rat will be gone. Feed him to a snake and he will think you are feeding him a snake. Utterly indomitable, the shrew is fantastically fierce. And, because his stomach contains a sickening musk which he can release whenever attacked, he has hardly any predators. Also, his saliva contains a venom similar to that secreted by the cobra. When the shrew`s teeth slash an enemy, the victim grows foggy-minded, then has trouble breathing, then succumbs to paralysis. And the shrew is very common; he might be the commonest mammal where you live. He might not be dangerous to us but, pound for pound, I do not think you will get much more dangerous than that long-nosed wee fellow. By the way, I have seen a film of a lion and a tiger fighting. The tiger is bigger but the lion is more used to a long, rough fight. It was pretty even but the lion won in the end.

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