Vampire Week Wrap-Up

With the vampire movie Twilight opening today, I thought it would be fun to do a week's worth of blogs on real life vampires.

On Monday I asked if you'd ever seen a vampire with freckles and by Tuesday I concluded that human vampires are just not nice people. Wednesday and Thursday I took a closer look at some creepy crawlies and their vampire tendencies.

So, in the end, which is the deadliest vampire in the U.S.?
Answer: The mighty mosquito (based on how many deaths they caused in 2004)




Mosquito: 92 deaths - West Nile(79), Malaria (8), Viral Encephalitis (5)
Tick: 12 deaths - Lyme disease (6), Rocky Mountain spotted fever (6)
Assassin Bug: 2 deaths - Chagas disease
Flea: 1 death - the plague
Vampire Bat: 0 or unknown (3 rabies deaths were probably due to dog bites)
Leech: 0
Lice: 0
Human/cannibal serial killer: 0 or unknown Sphere: Related Content

How Deadly Are Assassin Bugs?

It depends on where you live.

In Venezuela, which has a population about 8% the size of the United States, the Assassin bug (also known as the kissing bug) caused 716 human deaths from Chagas disease in 2004, way more than the 41 who died there because of mosquito bites (35 from malaria, 4 from dengue fever and 2 from yellow fever). But in the U.S. that same year there were only 2 deaths from Chagas disease. The blood sucking creature that killed more North Americans was the mosquito with 92 deaths in 2004 (79 from West Nile, 8 from malaria and 5 from mosquito-borne viral encephalitis). Ticks also pose a threat killing 12 Americans from tick-caused Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Fever.

What is Chagas Disease? http://www.cdc.gov/chagas/factsheets/detailed.html

What do killer mosquitoes look like? http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/arbor/mosqpics.htm

What is Malaria? http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/

What is Dengue Fever? http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/dengue/

What is Yellow Fever? http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/yellowfever/

What is West Nile Fever? http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/wnv_factsheet.htm

Want more cool bug photos? http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740

Sphere: Related Content