The world’s most dangerous predator is… a ten year old?

Stories of big cats being man-eaters are well-documented. Siberian tigers, lions, jaguars, leopards, and even cougars have been known to track and kill humans, with some individual cats having killed dozens of people.<br>And then there are the truly massive salt water crocodiles and other crocodilians, who kill and eat humans with impunity in certain parts of the world. The Nile crocodile alone has been blamed for up to 1,000 human deaths per year.<br>Black mamba snakes kill upwards of 10,000 people annually. Hippopotamuses are surprisingly deadly, with up to 3,000 killed each year. Africanized killer bees kill around 1,000 people each year in Brazil alone.<br>And then there are sharks. Though they don’t quite kill the 5,000 people per year that you might have heard, they still manage to kill around five people per year, on average.<br>But if you thought any of those predators were the most deadly, you would be wrong.<br>The world’s most deadly animal is not quite as flashy as a shark or a snake; it’s the lowly mosquito, killing 725,000 people per year.<br>And in the small town of Wishington, nestled in the mountains of Colorado, 10-year-old Maura “Mo” Durant is the most deadly predator.<br>She might look innocent, with her long, curly blonde hair and big blue eyes, but the residents of Wishington know better, and they give her a very wide berth indeed.<br>Mo and her father arrived two years ago, and it was clear from the first that Mo was different from the common residents of Wishington. She was incredibly intelligent, fast, and strong, and she always seemed to be watching.<br>After her father died under mysterious circumstances a year ago, Mo became even more aggressive. She has been caught digging in the compost bins at night, and residents have reported finding her covered in blood after hunting excursions with her bow.<br>And so the people of Wishington stay inside after dark, but even that may not be enough to protect them from the young killing machine who lives among them.