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http://mosquitoenemy.com/how-much-blood-can-a-mosquito-drink/
This provides nearly all the answers to your question (although they went with sucking a person completely dry and I'm inclined to think they did some rounding for convenience).
Life threatening blood loss depends on your age, gender, and overall health - a rule of thumb is >50% of blood loss. This rule was established by experimenting with dogs (yes, they literally drained different % of the blood volume of dogs and observed which died) so it's by no means an absolute. But to sum up: If we assume an average person has a blood volume of 5L (7% of bodyweight or on average between 4.7-5.5L) and they would have to lose half of that you would need about 500000 female mosquitoes (and for you to not receive any fluids in the period during which they sucked).
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So, an immediate follow-up to that: is there is an LD50 for blood loss, or at the very least an analogous concept?
Because I know that the dosage at which 50% of the tested population dies at. Can you have a similar idea with blood loss or can every human being survive when they have just over half of their blood supply?
Also: isn't LD50 kind of a trap? 50% is alot, no doubt, but individuals of the population have died at lower concentrations as well, so wouldn't LD25 or something be a better cutoff?
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we actually recently tried to calculate whether mosquitoes can feasibly kill us, that is, whether we have enough skin surface to be drunk faster than we create blood and the result I think was a definitive yes.
this thinking may seem academic to people not living in Poland
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On June 21 2017 23:01 opisska wrote:
we actually recently tried to calculate whether mosquitoes can feasibly kill us, that is, whether we have enough skin surface to be drunk faster than we create blood and the result I think was a definitive yes.
this thinking may seem academic to people not living in Poland
North of Sweden would be a good place to carry out these experiments otherwise.
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On June 21 2017 23:06 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2017 23:01 opisska wrote:
we actually recently tried to calculate whether mosquitoes can feasibly kill us, that is, whether we have enough skin surface to be drunk faster than we create blood and the result I think was a definitive yes.
this thinking may seem academic to people not living in Poland North of Sweden would be a good place to carry out these experiments otherwise.
Even after 12 years I vividly remember packing our tent while running around in circles because standing still was physically impossible at the "campsite" in Stora Sjofallets.
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On June 21 2017 23:06 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2017 23:01 opisska wrote:
we actually recently tried to calculate whether mosquitoes can feasibly kill us, that is, whether we have enough skin surface to be drunk faster than we create blood and the result I think was a definitive yes.
this thinking may seem academic to people not living in Poland North of Sweden would be a good place to carry out these experiments otherwise.
Amateurs. You have no idea what a swarm of mosquitos looks like until you have been to the Pantanal.
E: @opisska, it is also valhalla for birding!
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On June 21 2017 22:53 Uldridge wrote:
So, an immediate follow-up to that: is there is an LD50 for blood loss, or at the very least an analogous concept?
Because I know that the dosage at which 50% of the tested population dies at. Can you have a similar idea with blood loss or can every human being survive when they have just over half of their blood supply?
Also: isn't LD50 kind of a trap? 50% is alot, no doubt, but individuals of the population have died at lower concentrations as well, so wouldn't LD25 or something be a better cutoff?
Not every human being can survive when they have just over half of their blood supply - and some can survive losing 2/3rd. Things such as age, gender, body mass, hydrationstatus, overall health status, fitness level, rate of loss, cause of loss, and even exact component being lost (i.e. are you bleeding "full-blood" or are you "merely" losing plasma or red blood cells?) are all factors to be considered. As such I am not aware of any simile to LD50 for blood loss, but maybe another doctor can weigh in? I think there is one or two others (there used to be that guy from one of the South American countries).
LD50 is generally being used over other LDs largely because of convention I believe. The concept was invented to be able to compare potency of different chemicals with different ways of killing and as such you really just needed to agree on the same endpoint. I'm guessing they chose LD50 in an attempt to minimize random error, but honestly I do not know and my toxicology book is in the basement as I haven't opened it for 10 years.
EDIT: Speaking of LD50 - I think there is a legitimate chance that the toxin the mosquito injects might cause an anaphylactic shock before you die of blood loss - but you'll have to google that one for yourself. I know of such a story to make the rounds on Kungsleden in Lapland, but frankly I'm sceptical.
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Wikipedia says mosquitoes take about 5e-6 L (5 micro-litres) each (twice its weight!) in a total of one or two minutes.
Regarding blood regeneration, it's tougher to get values, since blood is made in different ways. Mainly the plasma, red cells, and white cells are made separately. Some internet wandering seem to set up for ~50 mL of blood created each day, so 35e-6 L each minute.
If I didn't made any scale mistake, you create enough blood to sustain continuous bites from 7 mosquitoes. However, you're still at 'maximum blood capacities'.
This is where we are lacking hypotheses: you didn't say how long you want to be alive. So let's say, for TV prime time purposes that you aim for 1 hour.
We have around 5 litres of blood, and can't really afford to lose more than 30% of it without emergency treatment, so 1.5L. In order to get below that, if you double the mosquitoes numbers (making it 14), it would take you a month. We need to go much higher. In order to get close to our body limits in an hour, you then need to be continuously bitten by 5000 mosquitoes.
Also, since each can only drink so much blood, you need a total of 300 000 mosquitoes for the whole operation.
Well, 300 007 mosquitoes.
Edit: of course, 5 hours later I'm half a page late :p
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On June 22 2017 00:21 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2017 23:06 Cascade wrote:On June 21 2017 23:01 opisska wrote:
we actually recently tried to calculate whether mosquitoes can feasibly kill us, that is, whether we have enough skin surface to be drunk faster than we create blood and the result I think was a definitive yes.
this thinking may seem academic to people not living in Poland North of Sweden would be a good place to carry out these experiments otherwise. Amateurs. You have no idea what a swarm of mosquitos looks like until you have been to the Pantanal. E: @opisska, it is also valhalla for birding!
Is that really that bad? I have never seem as many mosquitoes in tropics as in the arctic. Sure, they have the added punch of the diseases, but by sheer numbers I think tundra is worse.
I have obviously heard of Pantanal however it's not really my style as it's not really accessible independently, due to all the water, but I may check it out eventually. I was in Esteros del Ibera, which is the second largest wetland after Pantanal and it was great, even just walking along the edges.
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On June 22 2017 00:32 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2017 00:21 Acrofales wrote:On June 21 2017 23:06 Cascade wrote:On June 21 2017 23:01 opisska wrote:
we actually recently tried to calculate whether mosquitoes can feasibly kill us, that is, whether we have enough skin surface to be drunk faster than we create blood and the result I think was a definitive yes.
this thinking may seem academic to people not living in Poland North of Sweden would be a good place to carry out these experiments otherwise. Amateurs. You have no idea what a swarm of mosquitos looks like until you have been to the Pantanal. E: @opisska, it is also valhalla for birding! Is that really that bad? I have never seem as many mosquitoes in tropics as in the arctic. Sure, they have the added punch of the diseases, but by sheer numbers I think tundra is worse. I have obviously heard of Pantanal however it's not really my style as it's not really accessible independently, due to all the water, but I may check it out eventually. I was in Esteros del Ibera, which is the second largest wetland after Pantanal and it was great, even just walking along the edges.
We had permethrin impregnated clothes (craghopper, not cheap stuff) and the mosquitos bit through them. I'm not sure about sheer numbers, but in terms of tenacity, the Pantanal mosquitos beat everything else I've seen. And that includes Finland and Scotland They were also in far greater number than anything I ever saw around Manaus or anywhere in Africa (although I was never in mosquito-infested areas of Africa in wet season, and dry season obviously has less numbers).
80% deet kept them at bay... as did the bats that flew around the house of the guy we stayed with.
The number and variety of birds is astounding. Haven't been to the Estero del Ibera, so can't compare, but my parents thought there were more birds than in the okavango (haven't been there either). But yeah. Pretty much impossible to visit on your own.
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Interesting - I always heard that some of the Canadian woods were the worst with Lapland being a close second. But admittedly that discussion took place among hikers who have primarily hiked in colder regions than Brazil  It would make a lot of sense for such a place to be pretty insane mosquito-wise though.
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In more mosquito related question stuff: could you develop callous skin over your entire body so they couldn't penetrate the skin-blood barrier any longer; i.e. they'd just penetrate the skin barrier?
If so, could we culturally rearrange our society to commence in sado-masochistic rituals from the age of 3 to acquire these far superior skins?
And can/could/should a blind person essentially pluck them out of the air with his echo-location powers?
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On June 25 2017 08:34 Uldridge wrote:
In more mosquito related question stuff: could you develop callous skin over your entire body so they couldn't penetrate the skin-blood barrier any longer; i.e. they'd just penetrate the skin barrier?
A bit far fecthed, but yeah, sure, I guess?
On June 25 2017 08:34 Uldridge wrote:
If so, could we culturally rearrange our society to commence in sado-masochistic rituals from the age of 3 to acquire these far superior skins?
Not sure why it'd have to be a cultural change. And you lost me a bit on the sado-maschism... Why does it have to be sado-masochistic? >_>
On June 25 2017 08:34 Uldridge wrote:
And can/could/should a blind person essentially pluck them out of the air ...
Wait what? Why blind people? If you have that thick skin you wouldnt need to bother with them right? I'm giving up.
On June 25 2017 08:34 Uldridge wrote:
...with his echo-location powers?
I'm done here.
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The bit about the blind person was a different question. It was alluding to having a new niche for blind people to fill in: being mosquito hunters. You then have your cleaning ladies and mosquito hunters.
Getting callous skin everywhere wouldn't be easily attained. You need to put pressure on the skin, often with very narrow surfaces (like metal string or whatever). Self inflicting and inflicting upon others these pressures is a form of sado-masochism, because it's pretty painful (start playing guitar with metal strings, you'll know what I mean).
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On June 25 2017 10:49 Uldridge wrote:
The bit about the blind person was a different question. It was alluding to having a new niche for blind people to fill in: being mosquito hunters. You then have your cleaning ladies and mosquito hunters.
Getting callous skin everywhere wouldn't be easily attained. You need to put pressure on the skin, often with very narrow surfaces (like metal string or whatever). Self inflicting and inflicting upon others these pressures is a form of sado-masochism, because it's pretty painful (start playing guitar with metal strings, you'll know what I mean).
It's only masochism if you derive pleasure from the pain. If you just accept the pain as a necessary sideeffect that you need to endure to achieve a different goal, it is not.
Otherwise, getting a tattoo or waxing your legs would also be masochistic rituals.
The Sado only comes in when someone else derives pleasure from inflicting the pain.
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I don't think there is any place on my skin that the mosquitoes can't penetrate, including hardened patches on feet and the like. I am not sure if they manage to get actual blood but it stings the same so who cares.
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On June 25 2017 18:25 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2017 10:49 Uldridge wrote:
The bit about the blind person was a different question. It was alluding to having a new niche for blind people to fill in: being mosquito hunters. You then have your cleaning ladies and mosquito hunters.
Getting callous skin everywhere wouldn't be easily attained. You need to put pressure on the skin, often with very narrow surfaces (like metal string or whatever). Self inflicting and inflicting upon others these pressures is a form of sado-masochism, because it's pretty painful (start playing guitar with metal strings, you'll know what I mean). It's only masochism if you derive pleasure from the pain. If you just accept the pain as a necessary sideeffect that you need to endure to achieve a different goal, it is not. Otherwise, getting a tattoo or waxing your legs would also be masochistic rituals. The Sado only comes in when someone else derives pleasure from inflicting the pain.
I've never met a tattoo artist that didn't get pleasure from inflicting pain on people, also most of the people with tattoos report feeling an "addiction to tattoos" and not the art part, but the actual needle. That is to say that there's usually some masochism involved in tattoos, pretty sure some waxers get off on inflicting pain too.
I'm wondering what the sound I'm hearing is when I drive by stationary vehicles with my windows down.
Similar sounds are caused by other various objects/structures near the side of the road. I thought it was just air displaced by my car bouncing off of stationary objects as I drive past them, but that it happens at low speeds made me think there might be more at play?
Totally unrelated question: Is not pooping in public restrooms a mostly American thing? I'm not counting pooping on the clock at work, but almost universally Americans report avoiding pooping in public restrooms unless absolutely necessary. Wasn't sure if this is a prudish/disgusting bathroom in US thing, or a more general human experience?
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Some mosquitos sting more than others, just as some inject more anti-coagulant 
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On June 25 2017 19:58 GreenHorizons wrote:
Totally unrelated question: Is not pooping in public restrooms a mostly American thing? I'm not counting pooping on the clock at work, but almost universally Americans report avoiding pooping in public restrooms unless absolutely necessary. Wasn't sure if this is a prudish/disgusting bathroom in US thing, or a more general human experience?
I'd guess sampling bias first. Those who do, don't talk about it for politeness' sake.
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EPT
