World's Most Notorious Serial Killer is Small But Deadly

Our planet has a lot of deadly animals. And when we say deadly, we all expect it to be with sharp teeth, long claws, and flexing coils. Not quite.

According to the press release exclusively sent to Nature World News, the most potent, powerful creatures in the animal kingdom are often the most overlooked. So, no, it is not a lion, tiger or bear (so size doesn't matter here).

And in this case, Africa's deadliest killer is no other than mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes, which transmit malaria, are the most dangerous creatures on the planet, and Africa is home to 91 percent of last year's 438,000 malaria deaths. In addition, many Africans fall victim to the sometimes-fatal tsetse fly, which carries African sleeping sickness, according to the World Health Organization.

Homicide claims 475,000 people every year, but that's only half the mosquito's death toll, according to this research. This means that mosquitoes are even more notorious than man.

Proving true to mosquitoe's fierceness, the notorious malaria was single handedly caused by female mosquitoes of the Anopheles genus.

In fact, the notoriety of mosquito's killer streak has grabbed the headlines all over the world for Zika virus, an epidemic associated with miscarriages and birth defects.

This mosquito-borne virus is now making a killing spree not only in its previous holdings in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands -- it also marked its first outbreak in Brazil last year.

To date, 157 women have tested positive for Zika in America, NPR reports. The Zika virus is known to spread among pregnant women, causing myrocephaly to newborn babies, a disease where infants are born with relatively small heads.

To learn more about mosquitoes, nature's small but deadly killer, check out the video below.