20 Famous People Who Lost Their Lives Because of Animals

It’s hard to believe that a monarch could be brought down by a small animal, but that is exactly what happened. In 1920, King Alexander was walking his dog in the royal gardens when the dog was attacked by a wild Barbary macaque. While trying to save his dog, the king was bitten by the monkey and contracted a fatal case of sepsis as a result of the injury.

The entire world was truly shocked when the planet’s most famous wildlife expert was killed by an animal he usually handled with ease. While filming a documentary in 2006, a giant stingray pierced his heart with its barbed tail in an unexpected defensive move. He remains the most recent figure on this list, and his legacy continues to inspire animal lovers around the world.

If you’ve ever felt like birds were trying to drop animals on your head, the Greek playwright Aeschylus would certainly agree with you. Legend has it that one day, an eagle dropped a turtle on his head, ending his life. What an unfortunate coincidence.

It was a goose that truly led to this king’s downfall in 1410. After eating an entire goose for dinner one evening, he died shortly afterward from acute indigestion combined with uncontrollable laughter. This fit of laughter had been triggered by a joke from a court jester.

While Barbarossa was leading the Third Crusade, he drowned after his horse, seized by panic, threw him off and sent him tumbling into a river. It is said that the horse slipped while trying to cross, causing the emperor to fall. He was unable to swim because he was wearing heavy armor at the time.

Imagine being the only English pope in history and seeing your reign come to an end because of a tiny insect floating in your glass of wine. He is said to have died of a condition called angina after a fly got stuck in his throat. It’s one of those unusual historical anecdotes that make you want to cover your glass at every picnic.

You’ve no doubt heard that too much of a good thing can be dangerous, and for this English king, that thing was a fish that looked like an eel. Despite his doctor’s warnings, he gorged himself on lampreys. His love for this particular aquatic delicacy brought a thirty-five-year reign to an end in a manner that was anything but regal.

Cleopatra is famous for having forced a snake to bite her in her final moments. This story comes to us from Strabo, one of the earliest sources from that period. According to him, she either forced an asp to bite her or used a poisonous ointment.

Although he was well past the age of fifty, Sir Francis Bacon wanted to see if cold could help preserve animals. He took a chicken and stuffed it with snow, all with his bare hands. He began to feel ill, quickly contracted pneumonia, and died shortly thereafter.

Legend has it that Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, spent his final years searching for the elixir of life. Fish were among the many animals whose organs he ground into pills, believing they would grant him immortality. As he grew older, he grew weaker from ingesting these mercury-laden pills.

Taylor Mitchell was a Canadian folk singer and songwriter. That was until 2009, when she was attacked by a coyote while hiking in Nova Scotia. This is one of the few recorded cases in which a coyote attack proved fatal.

In an unusual twist in which “the prey strikes back,” a man was attacked in California during an illegal cockfight. One of the birds had a 7.5 cm metal spur attached to its leg. In the confusion, the rooster, panicked, pecked the man, injuring him and killing him.

Once nicknamed the “Greta Garbo of the Skies,” Batten was a world-renowned New Zealand pilot who broke several solo flight records in the 1930s. After retiring to a life of complete seclusion in Mallorca, Spain, the circumstances of her death remained a mystery for years. It was eventually discovered that she had been bitten by a small stray dog.

This world-renowned primatologist dedicated her life to protecting gorillas in Rwanda. While her death was caused by poachers, it was her intense and unique bond with a gorilla named Digit that helped seal her fate. After Digit was attacked by poachers, Fossey’s crusade became so fierce that it ultimately led to her assassination.

During the construction of the Uganda-Mombasa railway, two maneless lions struck terror into the hearts of the workers. For several months, they reportedly dragged dozens of men out of their tents at night. The project came to a complete standstill until the lions were finally shot, proving that nature could halt the advance of the British Empire.

Nicknamed the “fearless woman,” Wiley was a renowned herpetologist who claimed she could tame any snake. She often posed for photos with venomous reptiles without any protection. Her luck ran out during a photo shoot when an Indian cobra she had just acquired bit her.

This American couple is best known for having been abandoned by their dive boat on the Great Barrier Reef. Although their bodies were never found, their disappearance inspired the movie Open Water. Their dive slate was later found at the bottom of the ocean, offering a glimpse into the terrifying realization that they were surrounded by predators in the open sea.

In the world of animal welfare and zoos, few names were as respected in Japan as that of Mitsui, a veteran zookeeper at Fuji Safari Park. Despite his decades of experience and the deep bond he shared with the big cats, he was tragically attacked by a Siberian tiger during a routine inspection of its enclosure. This incident sent shockwaves through the zoological community.

After their ship was torpedoed in the Pacific, hundreds of sailors found themselves adrift at sea for several days. This location was the scene of the most terrifying shark feeding frenzy ever recorded in history. The survivors recounted the terrifying sight of white-tipped sharks attacking the men one by one—a story later immortalized in the film Jaws.

Joselito Gomez was a Spanish matador in the early 20th century. Born into a family with a long tradition of bullfighting, he followed in their footsteps and became a true legend… until the bull finally got the better of him in 1920.