Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, was just killed by a stingray. Their venom isn't generally lethal, but they have long stingers, and it got him right in the heart, and the resulting wound killed him almost instantaneously. He hadn't been so popular since he wrangled a crocodile while holding an infant, but I'm really going to miss his infectious enthusiasm. The time he brought a giant python onto Conan O'Brien's set and this 30 foot snake was nearly overpowering its handlers, who couldn't get it offstage was certainly a memorable moment in television. (Apparently reticulated pythons eat chicken.)
I really thought if a TV animal expert with proper respect for animals was going to get killed while filming, it would be Manny Puig from Wildboyz. Actually I would definitely have expected Steve-O or Partyboy to be killed or maimed long before Steve Irwin or Siegfried and Roy. Right before I read the news about Steve Irwin, I was watching an episode of Wildboyz where Steve-O has a wild black bear eat honey and marshmallows off of his chest, and Manny tries to wrestle a feeding blue shark (with David Hasselhoff looking on as lifeguard). One of them has a rock python tattoo for god's sake, from letting a rock python bite him so he could pour ink into the wounds... how are these guys still alive? Although Steve-O did go to clown college, where he must have learned a thing or two.
The guy in India who relocates king cobras that wander into populated areas would have been another likely candidate, since he's been bitten so many times he's allergic to the antivenin. Although scientists have genetically engineered mice to be resistant to cobra venom, so someday, your pet store will be able to sell you a mouse that, like the mongoose, cannot be killed by cobras. It's too bad biochemists haven't licked that whole AIDS vaccine problem yet, but at least their laboratory mice won't be killed by cobras. Unless they get long, sharp fangs stuck through their necks somehow, that might actually still kill them. Or murine AIDS, since obviously they won't be vaccinated against that either.
I actually spent more time than I took to write the rest of this finding an adjective "murine" that I thought would be analogous to feline, apian, or ovine so I could make that joke. I'm building a catalog of adjective forms derived from Latin names, no man should know off the top of his head that apian flu and ovine spongiform encephalopathy are fictitious diseases spread by bees and sheep, I really need help. Does the squalus really live in squalor, is that really fair?
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