Can flexing make mosquitoes pop?

Flexing muscles during a mosquito bite cannot make the mosquito pop. The myth that flexing muscles or stretching the skin traps the mosquito’s proboscis in the skin and causes its abdomen to fill up with blood until it explodes is false.

Scientists have, however, found a way to make mosquitoes feed until they pop by cutting their ventral nerve cords. The ventral nerve cord signals a mosquito’s brain when its stomach is full. Cutting the cord causes the mosquito to consume more than the normal amount of blood and explode. In some cases, the mosquito may keep feeding even after it has exploded, causing blood to spill from its body.