science

The Most Dangerous Animal in the World

The Most Dangerous Animal in the World is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Most Dangerous Animal in the World rather than just read about it. In short: The Most Dangerous Animal in the World was a 1963 exhibit at the Bronx Zoo in the Bronx, a borough of New York City. It featured a mirror and text describing the dangers humans pose to life on earth.

Key takeaways

The Most Dangerous Animal in the World belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Most Dangerous Animal in the World to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Most Dangerous Animal in the World from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Most Dangerous Animal in the World was a 1963 exhibit at the Bronx Zoo in the Bronx, a borough of New York City. It featured a mirror and text describing the dangers humans pose to life on earth. In 1968 the exhibit was duplicated at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.

History The Most Dangerous Animal in the World exhibit debuted at the Bronx Zoo on April 26, 1963. The story about the exhibit was picked up and reprinted throughout the United States. In 1963 the exhibit was also reported on in The Illustrated London News. There was also an accompanying photograph courtesy of the New York Zoological Society. The exhibit was installed at the Great Apes House.

Exhibit The words: "The most dangerous animal in the world" were printed in red on top of a cage. Behind the bars of the cage, there was a mirror. The exhibit allowed the human visitors to peer into the cage and see their reflection — marking them as "most dangerous". The exhibit at the Bronx Zoo was reportedly still there in 1989. In 1963 the curator of mammals at the Bronx Zoo was asked about visitors' reactions to the exhibit. He said, "They take it the way we want them to. It gets them to stop and think." The original text under the exhibit read:

Sometime around the early 1970s, the text was changed to read:

Reception In 1963 the Corpus Christi Times called it a "startling exhibit" and said that it "stops visitors in their tracks". The Illustrated London News said what people saw in the mirror was "without a doubt, the most dangerous animal in the world". "And there is considerable truth in this simple, but effective statement that is made." In 1989, the exhibit was referred to as a guilt trip by The Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Legacy By 1968, Brookfield Zoo in Chicago had a similar display which read, "The most dangerous creature on earth is man, who destroys himself and has caused the extinction of over 100 species of animals." A version of the sign appears at the zoo featured in Yann Martel's 2001 novel Life of Pi.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Most Dangerous Animal in the World

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Most Dangerous Animal in the World claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Most Dangerous Animal in the World before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Most Dangerous Animal in the World ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Most Dangerous Animal in the World

In research: The Most Dangerous Animal in the World appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Most Dangerous Animal in the World in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Most Dangerous Animal in the World is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1963 beginnings, 1963 in New York City, 1963 quotations, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Most Dangerous Animal in the World outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Most Dangerous Animal in the World in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Most Dangerous Animal in the World means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Most Dangerous Animal in the World out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Most Dangerous Animal in the World in simple terms?

The Most Dangerous Animal in the World was a 1963 exhibit at the Bronx Zoo in the Bronx, a borough of New York City. It featured a mirror and text describing the dangers humans pose to life on earth.

Why does The Most Dangerous Animal in the World matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Most Dangerous Animal in the World?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Most Dangerous Animal in the World.