It starts with one bite.
Then, one hundred.
Soon, one thousand.
Now a swarm of one million
bloodsucking mosquitoes
descends upon you.
If you’ve ever been in tall grassy areas
or near standing water,
you’ve experienced the relentless buzzing
and biting of mosquitoes.
But you might not know that
there are 3,500 species of them.
And only a couple hundred drink human blood.
Only the female mosquitoes bite.
That’s because they need a tasty blood meal
before they can lay their eggs.
Mosquitoes are surprisingly picky too.
They prefer men,
pregnant women
and people who are overweight.
But perhaps their favorite victims
are people of a certain blood type.
Mosquitoes are almost twice as likely
to land on someone with type O blood.
So if you fit that criteria, congratulations.
One million tiny insects could be dining on you.
Tonight, when the first mosquito lands and takes a bite,
you likely wouldn’t feel a thing.
That’s because her proboscis is very sharp and thin.
And, left alone,
she would feed on you until she’s full.
An Asian tiger mosquito, for example,
would drink approximately 0.005 ml (.0002 oz) of blood.
That’s the volume of a single mustard seed.
What you would notice is the itchy,
red swelling around the bite.
Otherwise known as Skeeter syndrome.
This is your body’s allergic response
to an anticoagulant in the mosquito's saliva.
It prevents your blood from clotting
so the mosquito can get every last drop.
If you were unlucky,
you could have other allergic reactions
like lesions, bruises or swelling in the throat.
A handful of bites doesn't sound too bad.
But how about 90,000?
Well, at this point,
you would lose close to half a litre of blood.
If you’re an avid blood donor, you're used to this.
Though you would have a headache
and feel dizzy, nauseous and physically weak.
You have about 1.75 sq m (19 sq ft) of skin.
And taking on 90,000 mosquito bites would be a lot.
You would be bitten over five times
for every 1 sq cm (0.15 sq in) of your body.
That includes your more delicate areas,
if you know what I mean.
And your nightmare wouldn't end there.
If 220,000 mosquitoes bit you,
that would be about 13 bites per 1 sq cm (0.15 sq in).
And you would lose 20% of your blood.
Now, your body would go into hypovolemic shock.
You would have major organ failure
as your heart loses the pressure needed to circulate your blood.
You would become pale, confused and weak.
You could even slip into a coma.
Now if one million mosquitoes bit you,
all 5.5 L (186 oz) of blood would be drained from your body.
Each sq cm (0.15 sq in) of your skin
would be bitten over 62 times.
That means you would be a raw, bloody, dead mess.
So listen, if you see a million mosquitoes
flying towards you,
you should run.
But what about one million other insects?
Like ticks.
Well,
that’s a story for another WHAT IF.