Zoonoses (singular form: zoonosis) are diseases of animals, wild or domesticated, that may be transmitted to humans. Such diseases may be transmitted through a vector such as insects, most notably mosquitoes. It may also be human-to-animal transmission, sometimes referred to as reverse zoonosis or anthroponosis. A comprehensive medical literature review identifies 868 out of 1415 (around 61%) species of infectious organisms as zoonotic.
Examples of zoonoses are anthrax, Oropouche fever, plague, bartonellosis, Bolivian hemorrhagic fever, cowpox, cholera, yellow fever, West Nile virus, dengue fever, ebola, Lábrea fever, H1N1 flu, bovine tuberculosis, Korean hemorrhagic fever, rabies, typhus of Rickettsiae, Rotavirus, hantavirus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Giardia lamblia, and orf.
Some well known agents of zoonotic infectious diseases are rodents, sloths, sheep, hamsters, birds, cats, bats, cattle, monkeys, snails, ticks, wolves, mice, fleas, flies, fish, mosquitoes, lice, assassin bugs, and raccoons.