CONTENTS ASIA 4 EUROPE 10 AFRICA 14 AUSTRALIA 20 NORTH AMERICA 24 SOUTH AMERICA 28 GLOSSARY 32 INDEX 32 FOR MORE INFORMATION 32
LETHAL WEAPON ASIA Bengal tiger Most lists of the world’s deadliest animals have the Bengal tiger close to the top These big cats are thought to have killed more than 370,000 people in Asia during the 19th and 20th centuries Bengals are the second largest big cats living today and one of the five surviving tiger sub species Males can grow to almost 10 feet 3 m long and weigh 660 pounds 300 kg They’re big and powerful and also very territorial They tend to live and hunt in areas where humans like to set up villages near grasslands at the edge of forests This means tigers are more likely to come into contact with people than most other big cats Tigers usually prefer prey such as buffalo wild boar and deer but there are reports of rogue tigers BITE FACT BOX LETHAL WEAPON CLAWS BITE OF STEEL Tigers don’t usually kill by ripping their prey apart Instead they lock their powerful jaws around their prey’s neck and suffocate it to death 4
that have become man-eaters Among the most famous was the so-called Tigress of Champawat She lived in Nepal during the 19th and early 20th centuries and became injured and unable to hunt her usual prey after being shot by a hunter She turned to human prey and is said to have killed more than 400 people before eventually being killed herself 5
