Connected on 2007-10-10 10:30:00 from Yarmouth, ME, US
- 9:57am
- Bugscope Team I think it is a built-in comb on a juvenile cockroach leg
- Bugscope Team hmm
- Bugscope Team Alex will you make a preset out of it please?
- Bugscope Team so lovely
- Bugscope Team called?
- Bugscope Team it does look cool waht part?
- Bugscope Team what
- Bugscope Team Comb on Baby Roach leg
- Bugscope Team nice
- Bugscope Team got it
- Bugscope Team this little dude had a full life
- Bugscope Team thank you for getting that for me
- Bugscope Team full and messy life from the looks of it
- Bugscope Team this is so gnarly
- Bugscope Team yeah full and messy life
- Bugscope Team ouch
- Bugscope Team spikey
- 10:03am
- Bugscope Team preset: section of diatom on roach abdomen
- Bugscope Team got it
- 10:08am
- Bugscope Team somehow i see a display of image info at the top of my image
- Bugscope Team if you click on the micron bar it will go away
- Bugscope Team try it
- Bugscope Team you can put it back if you want
- Bugscope Team hi stephanie! welcome to bugscope.
- Bugscope Team heya stephanie
- Bugscope Team we are all setup and ready for you, you can start practicing controlling the scope if you like...
- Bugscope Team presets are on the bottom right. microscope controls are upper right.
- Bugscope Team Hi Stephanie!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team hi
- 10:13am
- Teacher Hi guys. My tech coordinator will be joining me to drive the microscope and do the typing while I help pull quesions out of the kids. We will be ready to go at the start time. Thanks so much.
- Bugscope Team coolness
- Bugscope Team Cool.
- 10:25am
- Teacher Hi, it's Cathy, back for another time!
- Bugscope Team Yay!
- Bugscope Team This was an interesting assortment of stuff.
- Bugscope Team yo cathy!
- Bugscope Team Cate put what she could on the stub, and added a few things. The praying mantis was very large.
- Teacher Where should we start?
- Bugscope Team Go to a preset, or take the mag down here. Whatever you would like.
- Teacher They want the Praying mantis
- Bugscope Team well, you could try clicking on a preset, that'll take you to places of interest
- Bugscope Team ah ha
- Bugscope Team controlling the scope is done with 4 controls: magnify, navigation, focus and adjust.
- Bugscope Team nasty little arms like a T rex
- Bugscope Team feel free to use any of those you like. just click on one of the blue buttons to use the control.
- Teacher Stephanie just asked the class if this looks like anything they see in Maine.
- 10:30am
- Teacher Answers included lobsters, bluefish, crabs, shark's mouth.
- Bugscope Team wow yeah
- Bugscope Team cool
- Bugscope Team that has been my suspicion all along -- that lobsters are just very big bugs
- Teacher What is the "moss-like" part of the leg in the Center right now?
- Bugscope Team take the mag up to see
- Bugscope Team it may be sensory
- Teacher Guesses are dirt, fungi, an injury or scrape.
- Bugscope Team can you zoom in on it a bit?
- Bugscope Team it looks like different kinds of setae
- Bugscope Team yeah not sure it belongs there
- Bugscope Team so we can get a better look...
- Bugscope Team now I think Cate is right -- may be sensory setae
- Bugscope Team hmm, yes those look like setae, see the holes that the "hairs" are coming out of. those are setae
- Bugscope Team they can sense something touching them and possibly smell it
- Bugscope Team you should be able to focus a bit more
- Bugscope Team and/or take the mag up
- Bugscope Team focus can be tricky, try going one way, if it gets worse, go the other way...
- Bugscope Team usually insects are covered with setae -- the tiny hairs
- Bugscope Team nice focusing
- Bugscope Team very good focus!!! great job controlling the scope... yeah, now you can see.
- Bugscope Team but praying mantises, roaches, crickets, and grasshoppers,don't have so many tiny setae
- Teacher Thanks for your tips!
- 10:36am
- Bugscope Team so Stephanie we can see that it was something that belonged to the praying mantis, and it was very likely sensory
- Teacher How old can a praying mantis get?
Bugscope Team they live up to around a few months
- Bugscope Team once they get wings they will not grow any more
- Bugscope Team praying mantis can get VERY big too, the size of your hand.
- Bugscope Team but not all mantids with wings can fly
- Bugscope Team an adult hand! scary!
- Bugscope Team here is a pic of a big praying mantis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NG-PrayingMantis.jpg
- Teacher What are those tiny things near the claws? (We zoomed in to see more setae)
- Bugscope Team these aresensory setae as well
- Teacher The hair type thing
- Bugscope Team yes, like scott said, those are more setae. the insect uses setae to sense its environment, so the more they have, the better they feel.
- Bugscope Team I called Liz at the Hanks lab, and she said PMs can molt and molt until they get to be adults and have wings, and she said it depends on species but they can live a few months, as Cate said
- Bugscope Team these are Monarch wing scales, and some of them are painted with silver to try to cut down the charging -- the whiteness -- that we see now
- Bugscope Team the electron beam makes the sample charge up with electrons that the sample cannot always shed
- 10:41am
- Bugscope Team scales are especially susceptible to charging because they are tiny and loose -- not well connected or grounded to the stage
- Teacher How many scales are there on a butterfly wing?
- Bugscope Team that's why we saw all of that flaring
- Bugscope Team there must be tens of thousands
- Bugscope Team the scales make the wing feel silky when you touch it
- Teacher Whay are the vertical lines on the scales
Bugscope Team the vertical lines are like ribs, they provide support
- Bugscope Team the vertical lines are ribs that make them stronger
- Teacher Are there holes in the wing scales?
Bugscope Team yes! the scales can be very fragile. the scales are very light and thin, which aid in the aerodynamic ability of the wing, but they also can break easily.
- Bugscope Team they are much like feathers are to a bird
- Bugscope Team the holes make the scale lighter
- Bugscope Team to a flying insect the air feels thick, like water does to us
- Teacher Are the black parts in the scales colored black or are they the holes?
Bugscope Team they are holes, for sure.
- Bugscope Team the scales add surface area to the wing and help it hold the air
- Teacher How much can a monarch butterfly weigh?
Bugscope Team not sure of the weight, but they can be as big as 13cm
Bugscope Team small ones wiegh about .0001 ounce big ones up to .1 ounce
- Bugscope Team the pattern of the scales is very fine and may not be real colors -- the patterns may cause you to see structural colors, depending on how close the ribs are, for example
- 10:46am
- Bugscope Team I think they wiegh no more than a few grams
- Bugscope Team wiegh
- Bugscope Team weigh
- Bugscope Team way
- Bugscope Team this is cool
- Bugscope Team this is the edge of the proboscis
- Bugscope Team 13cm is about 5 inches...
- Teacher How big can a proboscis get?
- Bugscope Team sometimes we will see spines on these that help the insect hold gently to the flower it is feeding from
- Bugscope Team it can be as much as a couple of cm if the butterfly or moth is large
- Bugscope Team you can see here that there are recurved spines (to the right) that may be retractable
- Bugscope Team on the proboscis
- Teacher What does a proboscis feel like?
- Bugscope Team to us it sort of tickles
- Bugscope Team if there are 28 grams in an ounce, then 2 or 3 grams
- Bugscope Team for a big one, as Jon sayd
- Teacher We don't know how to pronounce the word probscis?
- Bugscope Team says
- Bugscope Team pro boss kiss
- Bugscope Team or pro boss sis
- Teacher Thanks!
- Bugscope Team people say it either way
- 10:51am
- Bugscope Team usually the second syllable is accented
- Teacher Does the proboscis have scales?
- Teacher How big can one scale on the butterfly wing get?
- Bugscope Team umm not sure
- Teacher Are there holes in the proboscis?
- Bugscope Team a mosquito proboscis has scales so it is likely the butterfly's could as well
- Bugscope Team but I think it is like a big straw and does not have holes or pores in it
- Bugscope Team the mosquito proboscis is actually a sheath for the lancet that is inside
- Teacher We read that there are over 25,000 species of wasps, do you know exactly how many species ther are?
- Bugscope Team it has a slit running from top to bottom (that of the mosquito)
- Bugscope Team no one really knows for sure
- Teacher What do praying mantis eat?
Bugscope Team praying mantis are carniverous, so they eat other insects!
- Bugscope Team wasps can be super tiny and live only in one locale
- Bugscope Team there are a lot of parasitic wasps
- Bugscope Team praying mantids eat other insects, and if they are super big, then they can eat small reptiles, birds and even some mammals
- Bugscope Team I saw on the web once a story about a praying mantis leaping in the air and grabbing a hummingbird
- 10:57am
- Teacher For the proboscis, we wonder how far it can roll up, how tight can it get?
- Teacher We see the eye facets, why are they shaped like hexagons?
- Bugscope Team it rolls into a tight coil
- Bugscope Team very efficiently stored for flying
- Bugscope Team the hexagonal shape is often found in close-packing in nature
- Bugscope Team i think the hexagonal shape allows for a curved surface, much better than a bunch of squares would...
- Bugscope Team the ommatidia are generally round but packed together they are hexagonal
- Bugscope Team Alex is brilliant
- Bugscope Team like Buckminster Fuller
- Bugscope Team blush...
- Bugscope Team the more ommatidia an insect has the better it can see things
- Bugscope Team like Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes.
- Teacher A student read in a book that a honeybee is more poisonous than a tarantula, is that ture?
Bugscope Team they are probably about equal---with the exception of a few tarantulas that are more poisionous
- Teacher How does the praying mantis eat?
Bugscope Team the praying mantis will use camouflage to hid, and then it'll grab it's pray quickly in it's fore-legs, and then start chomping on the meal, using it's legs to guide the food into it's mouth.
- 11:02am
- Teacher Which one is more poisonous, the wasp or the honeybee?
Bugscope Team a honey bee has a hook so the stinger stays an pumps venum. Hornets do not have a hook
- Teacher What is the bump thing in the center of our screen?
- Teacher The bump kind of looks kind of like a caterpillar?
Bugscope Team The bump is part of the antenna
Bugscope Team Actually, I think that is actually part of the mantid's mouth
- Bugscope Team whether which one is more poisonous depends on the person, if that person is allergic or not
- Bugscope Team A bee sting contains more proteins and active agents than a wasp sting and thus has more possibility to cause an allergic reaction in humans.
- Bugscope Team but a wasp can sting multiple times
- Bugscope Team so it all depends
- Teacher Were there some antenna that broke off the bumps in the middle of the picture?
Bugscope Team yes that is where the antennae broke off
- Bugscope Team also the wasp can call its comrades and have them sting you too, while with a bee, you need to provoke them to have them sting you, they are peaceful otehrwise
Bugscope Team Bees also have a alarm pheromone that can inspire the entire hive to attack
- 11:07am
- Teacher Is a praying mantis harmful to a garden?
Bugscope Team No, praying mantises are beneficial to a garden, they eat pest insects
- Teacher Is a praying mantis poisonous?
Bugscope Team No, praying mantises are completely harmless. They occasionally bite---but that is rare.
- Teacher What are the things in the middle of this screen?
- Bugscope Team oh thanks annie, i didnt know that
- Bugscope Team hee hee ;)
- Teacher Is the dragonfly wing fragile?
Bugscope Team They are suprisingly durable, considering that they are so thin. They do get torn and battered over time, especially if the dragonfly has any encounters with birds or other predators
- Bugscope Team yay I am glad Annie is here. I had to run off to help someone with the carbon coater.
- Teacher What is a dragonfly wing made of
- Teacher How long can a dragonfly wing get?
Bugscope Team The largest dragonfly in North America probably have wings about 3 inches long
- Bugscope Team it's made of chitin
- Bugscope Team kite-in
- Bugscope Team they can be several inches long, on a tropical dragonfly
- 11:12am
- Bugscope Team the wings are pretty tough
- Teacher What other animals are made of chitin?
Bugscope Team Other arthropods have bodies made of chitin---so crabs, lobsters, shrimp, millipedes, spiders, etc. And fungi have chitin in their cell walls.
- Bugscope Team chitin is like the shell of a shrimp, but in this case it is thinner
- Teacher What are the darfk lines in the background of the wing?
- Bugscope Team some of what we see that is dark is dirt and scratches
- Bugscope Team some of the dark spots are places where there is some oily substance on the wing and the gold-palladium we sputtered on does not coat well
- Bugscope Team chitin is also called cuticle, like your fingernails
- Teacher Can a dragonfly change color?
Bugscope Team When dragonflies are "babies" living under water they are usually brown or black or greenish. When they molt to adults they take on a different color. Some dragonflies are beautiful metallic colors that appear to change in the sunlight. But, once they are adults, they don't change colors.
- Bugscope Team it forms the exoskeleton of the insect or arthropod
- Teacher Are we seeing veins on the dragonfly wing?
- Bugscope Team this dragonfly had little green hashmarks on it
- Bugscope Team this is one of the veins here
- 11:18am
- Bugscope Team good job driving
- Teacher What can the ant claw be used for?
Bugscope Team Ants use their claws to hold onto surfaces as they walk.
- Teacher What are the "white" things?
- Teacher What is the opening in the middle of the screen?
- Bugscope Team the white setae are sensory
- Teacher What are the small dark holes on either side fo the bottom part>
- Teacher Are the claws usually symmetrical?
Bugscope Team I think that claws are pretty consistently symmetrical across the class insecta
- Teacher How long does an ant claw usually get?
- Bugscope Team you are asking a lot of great questions
- Bugscope Team you can see that this claw is about 0.2 mm long
- Teacher We read about a dragonfly scientist an "odonatologist". Do you know him>
Bugscope Team I don't personally know any odonatologists....but I study beetles, so I don't have many opportunities to hang out with aquatic entomologists---including odonatologists
- Bugscope Team notice in the bottom left of the image is a scale. that can give you an idea of length
- Bugscope Team they are different sizes depending on the ant species and what kind of job the ant has in the colony
- Teacher What's the big horn on the claw?
- 11:24am
- Bugscope Team we are not sure about some of these features, like the horn, Stephanie.
- Teacher What is the hole at the base of the picture?
- Teacher Is the leg hollow?
Bugscope Team The legs have muscles in them. When the insect dies, the muscle dries out and so the legs look hollwo
- Bugscope Team that is, sadly, where the end of the arm is missing
- Teacher Are cockroaches helpful or harmful?
Bugscope Team Cockroaches are considered harmful insects because they are gross, they smell, they infest food, and they can irritate people's allergies
- Bugscope Team there is no claw here.
- Teacher How long can the leg get?
- Bugscope Team because they help disassemble things I guess you could say they were helpful
- Bugscope Team are humans helpful or harmful? interesting question...
- Bugscope Team this was a very small roach I think but I wanted Annie to confirm that
- Bugscope Team i know i wouldnt want them in my food, leaving behind their droppings and what not
- Bugscope Team well, that's true, harmful to people.
- Bugscope Team like, it was not an adult
- Bugscope Team but it had, clearly, an adventurous life
- Teacher What kind of scientists are you?
Bugscope Team I am an entomologist
- Teacher Thank you for letting us visit thsi website!!
- Bugscope Team thanks for picking that up Annie
- Bugscope Team This insect on the screen??
- Bugscope Team Stephanie we had a great time. Thank You.
- Bugscope Team yes
- 11:29am
- Bugscope Team i'm a systems administrator = computer dude
- Teacher We have to go, we had a great time learning new facts!
- Teacher Bye!
- Bugscope Team I need to see the head...it kind of looks coleopteran from here
- Bugscope Team Deana wanted to know if it was a roach for sure.
- Bugscope Team Bye thank you for all the good questions!
- Bugscope Team all right, wee hope to see you again next semester
- Bugscope Team I am a microscopist --I run microscopes for a living
- Bugscope Team yeah....it fell off somewhere
- Bugscope Team NE
- Bugscope Team it was transparent and looked like a 'juvenile' roach to me
- Bugscope Team Hmm, maybe...did it have long antennae?
- Bugscope Team yes
- Bugscope Team It looks like a roach to me.
- Bugscope Team it had long antennae
- Bugscope Team Two entomologists think this is a roach
- Bugscope Team it was in Deana's window, on the sill
- Bugscope Team I had Liz look too
- Bugscope Team and it had lots of pollen and juju on it
- Bugscope Team so I think it crawled up and outside wall to get in
- Bugscope Team juju is the name of a miles davis tune.
- Bugscope Team a lot better than having been born under the stove, where there is little pollen
- Bugscope Team terminator
- Bugscope Team I think it was alive girl pirate
- Bugscope Team she froze it
- Bugscope Team and its bleeding head fell off
- Bugscope Team to use her terminology
- 11:34am
- Bugscope Team boy
- Bugscope Team Annie tell Liz thank you for helping this morning earlier
- Bugscope Team I did
- Bugscope Team she says you are welcome
- Bugscope Team Cool mademoiselle.
- Bugscope Team tomorrow morning
- Bugscope Team late morning
- Bugscope Team connection 11 to 12:45
- Bugscope Team okay I am out the door
- Bugscope Team thank you everyone
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