quote:Originally posted by Broken Angel: Last summer I sat on a bench and the 'Canadian National Bird' began an afternoon snack on my hand.
EXCUSE ME, but I don't recall any signing of the state bird of Florida over to Canada!
-------------------- We criticize a thinker more sharply when he presents us with a displeasing proposition; and yet it would be more reasonable to do this when his proposition pleases us. --Nietzsche Posts: 85 | From: Florida | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
My sister told me the same thing once, that misquitos will explode if you tense a muscle and like a few of you I tried it and it didn't work. But I do believe, like someone already said, that it probably works sometimes with some muscles in certain positions. Either way I'm not sure I really want to SEE something burst and gush blood everywhere.
~Monica
-------------------- "Run for five minutes? Why don't you just shoot me now?"--Comic Book Guy (Simpsons) Posts: 219 | From: Cleveland, Ohio | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
Funny, I've never heard the "tense the muscle" variation, I always heard it as "pull the skin tight around it with your fingers; it can't pull out and will stay until it bursts", but I never bothered trying it -- was just easier to swat them.
But then, maybe the kids in the playground were confusing sex with mosquito legends.
-------------------- I refuse to get into a battle of wits with an unarmed person... Posts: 724 | From: Ontario, CAN | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
Certainly I have made mozzies explode with a bit of muscle tension, but it is usually hand and arm muscle tension, and not the same arm as is being bitten.
-------------------- Check out my handmade pens Check back often because the page changes often Posts: 831 | From: Brisbane, Australia | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Don't know about the muscle tensing, but one I didn't believe until I saw it was my mother claimed while she was undergoing heavy chemotherapy that mosquitoes would plug in and die on her arm. I guess from the chemicals being pumped through her. I was sitting on the porch one evening talking with her and I'll be damn, one of the bastards started filling up and never left. Died right on her arm. Chemo is nasty stuff.
-------------------- "Sometimes it will be fluffy bunnies and cotton candy. Sometimes it will be napalm and defoliants. Sometimes it is roasted bunnies." -Rhiandmoi Posts: 627 | From: San Antonio, TX | Registered: Oct 2002
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posted
I wouldn't think that the mosquito's proboscis is deep enough into the muscle layer for this to work. Isn't it sucking blood from the capillaries in the skin?
This UL was held as gospel truth when I was a kid, but I never saw it work.
posted
I concur. I didn't think that they went down to the muscle.
As a child, I have cause the little NFBSK's some grief. When one would bite, I would carefully pinch the skin around the bug and push blood into it, kinda like (sorry for this) squeezing a pimple. They get really, really big, and don't fly away. Never had one pop without swatting assistance.
Posts: 104 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
Mosquitoes don't bite into muscle, they aim for near-surface capillaries. The proboscis isn't rigid, but is flexible and can be maneuvered into a capillary like a hypodermic needle or used to puncture a capillary and draw blood pooling around it. Tensed muscles would be below where the proboscis is at.
Posts: 296 | From: Crawfordville, Florida | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
The only way I have seen this is if you pinch the skin where the skeeter is sucking then they can't pullout then pop
Posts: 1 | From: Amarillo, Texas | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by gnome: How do our cockroaches measure up, comparatively?
What, you mean those palmetto bugs? They're bigger, true, but, a Palmetto bug will run away when you turn the light on. Texas Cockroaches slap you silly then scream at you for disturbing their sleep.
nah, you ain't got them neither.
ETA: Welcome to the board, Protopath
-------------------- 1st Infantry, SpecialOps Brigade - The Iron Faction. I survived Initiation 2005... with Naked Mole Rat Sumotori and Bill O'Reilly Posts: 264 | From: San Antonio, Texas | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Well, in truth we have two different bugs: the cockroach proper, and the palmetto bug, which is basically a flying cockroach.
I haven't seen a palmetto bug in a while... but yes, Florida cockroaches tend to scatter with the light on if they're having a stroll, but mostly they stay put on the slice of leftover pizza, and give you the finger, like a recalcitrant roommate.
Posts: 418 | From: New Port Richey, FL | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I don't mean to give any offense, but for a message board about urban legends, a lot of the replies on this thread have been of the "Yep, it happened to my ______ once" variety. I'm not calling anyone a liar, but it would be nice to see some non-anecdotal evidence.
That being said, I sure can't find anything after a google search of my own. I did come across this article, though. It says nothing about flexing a muscle or pinching skin, but it does describe mosquitoes bursting if the neural link between their abdomen and brain is severed. Eww.
-------------------- "Your name is Thurmon Mermon?" Posts: 244 | From: Chicago, IL | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Rexodus: I don't mean to give any offense, but for a message board about urban legends, a lot of the replies on this thread have been of the "Yep, it happened to my ______ once" variety. I'm not calling anyone a liar, but it would be nice to see some non-anecdotal evidence.
See Silas' message above, followed by mine. He did it; I saw it. It's still anecdotal, of course (we don't have repeated trials or anything) but at least you have direct eyewitnesses, not people who were told a FOAF did it.
quote:Originally posted by Echinodermata Q. Taft: ...but at least you have direct eyewitnesses, not people who were told a FOAF did it.
Fair enough. I shouldn't have suggested that there were a lot of FOAF posts, but rather that many of the posts were anecdotal.
Regarding the anecdotes, though, I wonder if the origin of the legend is people's surprise when they actually watch a mosquito fill up with blood, flexing or no flexing. Borken Angel described what happened when she simply observed a mosquito eat its natural fill, and it sounds pretty similar to Silas's account. The article I found (see post above) mentioned that a single bite could result in a mosquito increasing its body weight by up to four times.
So could the idea have originated as surprise at how swollen the insect becomes; followed by the presumption that something must have made the critter "stuck" and unable to stop sucking blood; followed by the theory that a flexed muscle was the cause; follwoed by the distortion of retellings; leading eventually to the full-blown (no pun intended) bursting myth?
-------------------- "Your name is Thurmon Mermon?" Posts: 244 | From: Chicago, IL | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
The plural of anecdote is not data but as long as you say it's an anecdote there's no harm in sharing your own experiences. Unless it's about exploding mosquitos. Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ganzfeld: The plural of anecdote is not data but as long as you say it's an anecdote there's no harm in sharing your own experiences.
True, but aren't anecdotes to ULs as marijuana is to heroin? No, wait, that doesn't work. I think my point was that they're kind of stepping stones. Or the progenitors of ULs.
Here it is: One person's eyewitness account is another person's FOAF. Specifically, it's the FOAF of the person two degrees removed from the eyewitness. Does that make sense?
I think I've had too much coffee today.
-------------------- "Your name is Thurmon Mermon?" Posts: 244 | From: Chicago, IL | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Rexodus, sure anecdotes can get out of hand, especially FOAF stories, but even FOAF stories aren't off-limits on the board, although some people seem to think they are. When it comes to exploding mosquitos you're not going to find a lot of scientific studies so you get what you get, which happens to be personal experiences with this extremely engrossing topic. Did I say engrossing? Maybe I meant gross.
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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I guess my eyebrow raised because of the presumptions in the accounts from Silas and Echinodermata: that the mosquito "couldn't get away" and that it "got heavy enough it couldn't really fly very well". I question those statements, but I take back my complaint about the anecdotes.
-------------------- "Your name is Thurmon Mermon?" Posts: 244 | From: Chicago, IL | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Rexodus: Good point, Ganz.
I guess my eyebrow raised because of the presumptions in the accounts from Silas and Echinodermata: that the mosquito "couldn't get away" and that it "got heavy enough it couldn't really fly very well". I question those statements, but I take back my complaint about the anecdotes.
Presumptions? Well... I've been bitten by many a skeeter. They hover, they land, they drink, they flit off again. Usually in only a second or two. They don't stay long.
But when I flexed my muscles, the little booger sat there for -- well, we didn't time it, but I'd estimate 30 seconds. Very abnormal behavior.
Anecdotal evidence is of some validity when serving as a rebuttal to an overly broad debunking. When good Edith D. Bunker says, "Oh, such and such can never happen," then it is entirely valid for me to say, "Pardon me, but it once happened to me, so I know for sure that it can."
But, again, why take it from me, or from anyone else? Go for a long hike in the swampy woods and try it for yourself. That's science!
Silas (not willing to extend this principle to rattlesnakes)
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I applaud your call for experimentation, Silas. Huzzah for science!
Now while I personally don't relish the idea of systematically receiving mosquito bites, I will submit the following protocol for any brave soul who wants to make a sacrifice for discovery. Think of it as a more painful and lower paying version of James Randi's $1 million challenge.
First, you get some mosquito larvae and let them mature in a lab setting. (This is to prevent disease, as biting adults cannot transmit something unless they've picked it up from a previous bite.) Randomly divide the adult females into four groups: three experimental and one control. In a lab, build boxes that allow an exposed human arm to enter, along with a video camera and a manipulable fly swatter.
Control group: mosquitos are allowed to bite an unflexed arm with no disturbance from the swatter.
Experimental group 1: allowed to bite a flexed arm, again with no movement from the swatter.
Experimental group 2: allowed to bite an unflexed arm, with the fly swatter being manipulated in proximity to them.
Experimental group 3: allowed to bite a flexed arm, with swatting movement.
Record the duration of the bites in all four conditions. Then apply calamine lotion vigorously.
-------------------- "Your name is Thurmon Mermon?" Posts: 244 | From: Chicago, IL | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I buy the 'pinch the skin and the mosquito can't pull out' thing, but not the 'it has to keep on sucking' part. Someone could glue a straw to my mouth, but it doesn't mean I have to keep on drinking. Surely the sucking part is voluntary by the mosquito? Surely when it has drunk its full, it would just be concerned with removing itself from you, and would stop sucking?
-------------------- "The fact that "uvula" and "vulva" look and sound similar was just a happy coincidence." - Lainie Posts: 548 | From: England | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Some mosquitoes can regulate the rate at which they take a bloood meal. They can also consume a surprising amount of blood.
The mosquitoes people reported as stuck when muscles were tensed may simply have been staying put to continue feeding, To it, the host was not responding negatively to the bite, so the mosquito continued to feed until sated.
While hunting, I've had to stay very still to see if an animal would move into a good position. I've then had mosquitoes land and bite, staying in place to continue feeding for long periods of time.
Posts: 296 | From: Crawfordville, Florida | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
My brother tried the "pull the skin of your arm tight" thing. This was about 18 years ago. The mosquito stayed there, sucking up more and more blood. It turned red and swelled. It got bigger, and bigger, as the excitement grew... then it flew away.
Posts: 44 | From: San Bruno, CA | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
Here's another piece of antecdotal evidence. Much like Silas's experience, I had a mosquito bite me on the top of my hand. Knowing that he'd already bitten me (and thus the damage was already done), I proceeded to clench my hand into a very tight fist and raised it to eye level. Be it tensed skin or muscle, the little bugger couldn't escape, despite trying. Her wings were buzzing furiously, and hse lifter her legs as to fly, but couldn't. This went on for a good twenty to thirty seconds, until I performed the mercy killing...and was greeted with a rather large squish of blood...
Posts: 277 | From: Virginia | Registered: Nov 2002
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posted
Am I the only one thinking of the "Far Side" cartoon with the bloated mosquito? "Pull out! Pull out! You've hit an artery!!"
-------------------- I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains - that's why I live in Melbourne, where it always bloody rains. Posts: 632 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
You may have been - until I read your post and got the mental image (that won't leave me for today). Thanks!
-------------------- My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling, but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places. - Pooh Bear Posts: 2209 | From: Hamburg, Germany | Registered: Oct 2004
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Kindly Wise
I'll Be Home for After Christmas Sales
posted
Hmmmm.... It looks like this thread is about tapped out, but maybe I can revitalize it with this anecdote.
My mother told me that she saw mosquitoes in the Canadian North explode while feeding on horses. Three possible explanations: 1) the bug accidentally tapped into an arteriole where the pressure is higher; 2) there is some hormone in the horse that confuses the mosquito's stretch receptors 3)the horse manage to lash the turgid mosquito with one horsehair, unseen during a languid tail-swat.
Personally, I just wish those nasty things would quit thinking I'm Thanksgiving dinner! One time, DH and I were out geocaching in the middle of nowhere. I was getting bitten by mosquitoes *through* multiple layers of clothing!
Posts: 486 | From: Sacramento, California | Registered: Jun 2005
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Kindly Wise
I'll Be Home for After Christmas Sales
posted
Mosquitoes are attracted to Limburger cheese?
So...if I'm lost in the swamp, I can smear my body with Limburger cheese, wait until thousands of mosquitoes have implanted their probosci, tense up ALL my muscles to trap the mosquitoes and then they can fly me to safety??
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