This past week I found out that sharks kill ten people every year. Seventy-five get injured. With the hype of Shark Week and movies such as "Jaws" "The Shallows" and "Sharknado 4", I was led to believe that shark attacks were more frequent and more fatal. People have a 1 in 3,700,000 chance of being killed by a shark in their lifetime. That’s a pretty slim chance. I began to research the top animals that kill humans, and there are many animals and insects that are more harmful than sharks, but we don’t fear them as much.

Sharks are the sixth most feared animals. The top 10 most feared animals are as follows:

10. Alligators

9. Coyotes

8. Bears

7. Birds

6. Sharks

5. Bats

4. Bed Bugs

3. Rats

2. Rattlesnakes

1. Black Widow Spiders

Yet, our fears are not synonymous with how dangerous these animals are. Here are the leading animals that cause the most human deaths at a yearly rate (note that coyotes, birds, bats, bed bugs, and rats are not on the list):

21. Black Widow (around 3 deaths)

20. Bears (10)

19. Sharks (10)

12. Jellyfish

“The jellyfish is responsible for 15-30 times more deaths each year than all unprovoked shark attacks worldwide.”

10. Deer (120)

9. Domestic dogs (30)

8. Buffalo (200)

7. Elephants (500)

6. Crocodiles (1,000 to 2,500)

5. Hippos (2,900)

4. Scorpions (1,000 to 5,000)

3. Snakes (50,000)

2. Tsetse flies (400,000)

1. Mosquitoes (660,000 to 1,000,000)

I don’t list these things to scare you or play down any fears that people have of other animals, but I want to propose a question: What about sharks make us fear them, and what about mosquitoes causes us to not be afraid?

I think the most obvious answer is size. We can smack a mosquito buzzing around our ears, but it is more difficult to protect ourselves from a shark because it is bigger than us. At first glance, we see a mosquito and say, “I can take that, it’s tiny.” But its sting can be far more deadly than a shark bite.

However, size cannot be the only answer. Elephants, for example, kill more people than sharks, but they are not feared as much. They are more revered and appreciated for their beauty and strength. We put them on t-shirts and phone cases because we like them so much. But if we came face-to-face with one in a jungle, that would be a different story. We like them behind a safe protective glass.

Jellyfish are beautiful creatures too, but they kill 15-30 more people than sharks. The appearance of animals, as well as how we portray them in movies, children’s books, etc., factor into whether we fear them or not. Perhaps it was just in God’s design that appearance is not the entirety of a being. The beautiful ones are not always the gentlest, the scary ones are not always the most dangerous, the big ones are not always the most powerful, and the small ones are not always the weakest.