Connected on 2008-12-02 09:30:00 from , NY, US
- 8:18am
- Bugscope Team pumping down
- Guest What are you looking at today?
- Bugscope Team caddis fly larvae, stone fly larvae, one black fly larva, a beetle, and a porcupine quill
- 8:31am
- Bugscope Team good morning johnnie
- Guest Follwed a blog link to this site - incredible
- Bugscope Team cool! We are just setting up for a session that is taking place in an hour
- Guest Looks great. I am with Ontario Ministry of Education and will share this site with our Science Education Officer
- 8:37am
- Bugscope Team Wow that sounds great!
- 8:42am
- 8:49am
- 8:56am
- 9:02am
- 9:09am
- 9:18am
- Teacher hello again
- Teacher it looks like our presets have changed, nice variety
- Guest This is fantastic! It looks like a horror movie!
- Bugscope Team hello the session is unlocked
- Guest The antenna of stonefly looks almost telescopic.
- Bugscope Team Yeah they do look telescopic.
- Guest how did the porcupine quill get in the mix?
- Bugscope Team Good morning Ms. Faville!
- Bugscope Team Ms. F sent it with the beetle.
- Teacher Good morning how's it going today?
- Bugscope Team Good!
- Bugscope Team We always have to make new presets when someone else has used the 'scope, and of course we didn't want them to be the same as yesterday. If we could help it.
- 9:23am
- Bugscope Team Also, we figured out which end of the blackfly larva is the head.
- Teacher very nice are the hydras still available to view?
- Bugscope Team We didn't see them this time. I got our pond scum guy to identify them, though.
- Bugscope Team They're called Salpingoeca fusiformis.
- Teacher what were they?
- Bugscope Team they aren't hydra -- I'm sorry.
- Bugscope Team with that genus species you can easily look them up on the web, or I can send you the links Mark sent.
- Bugscope Team We'll have to find another new species for your school.
- Bugscope Team Annie!
- Bugscope Team hello all!
- Bugscope Team Annie is our entomologist. She won't let us, for example, tell students that lobsters are just big insects with extra antennae.
- Teacher nice images of the diatoms
- Teacher Thanks Annie for joining us today
- Bugscope Team it is interesting that the caddisfly larvae seem to have opposable thumbs.
- 9:28am
- Bugscope Team I am happy to help out
- Bugscope Team oh this moved a little since we set it
- Bugscope Team nice-liookin' diatom
- Bugscope Team lookin'
- Bugscope Team that was Russian, I guess
- Bugscope Team I don't know how much help I will be with pond scum
- Guest my students are asking what is beetle palp?
- Bugscope Team that's just for some of the closeups, Annie
- Bugscope Team A palp is one of the various parts of an insect's mouth
- Bugscope Team Palps can help the insect to taste and to manipulate its food
- Guest How big can a caddisfly get?
Bugscope Team they can get up to 20mm long according to one source of information
- 9:34am
- Bugscope Team There are 12,000 species...
- Student how many cells does the caddisfly have
- Bugscope Team they will have thousands and thousands of cells
- Student how long can they live
Bugscope Team I think that most caddisflies have a one year life cycle, but I imagine that like some other aquatic insects, the larvae may take several years to develop.
Bugscope Team To clarify, some species may spend two or more years in the larval form
- Teacher its amazing the perpective when you zoom out
- Teacher The students were wondering what the specimen is mounted on
Bugscope Team we put everything on an aluminum stub with double stick carbon tape (the bubbly stuff in the background
- 9:39am
- Bugscope Team Yeah we often plan it so that you will have a sort of dramatic view when you pull back.
- Bugscope Team where it looks smooth in the background is where we put silver paint to help ground the charge as well as help the insects stick to the carbon tape
- Bugscope Team this is in a small cleft between segments on the dorsal side of a caddisfly larva
- Student what eats the them and what do they eat?
Bugscope Team Caddisflies eat a variety of foods. Some eat mold and little single celled organisms. Others are predators. Fish, amphibians, and aquatic invertebrates like crayfish will eat caddisfly larvae and pupae. The adults are eaten by birds, bats, lizards, and fish (when the adults land on the water),
- Guest if the caddisfly can get to be 20mm long, how big can there claw get?
- Bugscope Team this is a place in which the silk spin by the larva has trapped a lot of diatoms
- Bugscope Team the caddisfly larvae go through a large number of molts during that time
- Guest where do they live
- Student Sorry i meant what eats them and what do they eat
Bugscope Team The Caddisfly Larva eats algae and plants (living and dead). Some species feed on other insects and spin silky nets to capture their prey. Some eat the larvae of other Caddisfly species, while others scrape algae from stones or plants, or shred leaf litter.
- Guest who eats them
- Bugscope Team What eats them is other insects and maybe fish and birds
- Student can they be used for anthting important in our life?
Bugscope Team They are very important sources of food for birds and other small animals (fish too). They are also important species that can indicate the healthy of streams.
- Bugscope Team like a lot of seemingly inconsequential organisms, they have a role that might surprise you
- 9:44am
- Bugscope Team if they were not part of the system we might not have certain fish to eat, for example
- Bugscope Team Some people even make jewelry out of caddisfly cases!
- Guest how small are the eggs? and THANKS - we really enjoyed this!!
- Student what type of water do they live in and does it have to be in a certain tempature????
Bugscope Team Caddisflies live in freshwater--usually streams, although I believe that there are a few species that can live in lakes. Caddisflies are very sensitive to water temperature, dissolved oxygen, and polutants. Some species can only live in clean, cold streams. That is why caddisflies are used by biologists to determine the health of streams
- Teacher do they have an incomplete or complete life cycle?
Bugscope Team They have complete metamorphosis. They are in fact, most closely related to butterflies and moths.
- Teacher we just visited a caddisfly larva jewelry site :)
- Teacher Are caddisfly endemic to any particular area of the world
Bugscope Team I believe they are found all over the world, with the exception of Antarctica.
- Bugscope Team Most caddisflies are univoltine, completing a life history cycle in one year.
- Student thank you very much :)
- 9:50am
- Guest Thanks for letting us look
- Student what do they do in the winter do they go into the mud and make those houses
Bugscope Team Well, usually, the temperature of the water does not change too much between the seasons. So you can usually find active caddisfly larvae during even the coldest months. I once collected caddisfly larvae in the snow.
- Bugscope Team this is the one terrestrial insect on the stub today
- Bugscope Team a beetle
- Bugscope Team this is one of the palps -- one of the feeding mouthparts
- Teacher The students wondered what a palp is?
Bugscope Team it is found on the head and helps taste/manipulate its food
- Student what are the hair on the legs and body
- Bugscope Team the hairs are called setae (see-tee), or seta, singular
- Student how big is a micro unit
- Bugscope Team setae are often sensory -- they help the insect sense its surroundings through the exoskeleton
- Bugscope Team micro in this case means one millionth
- Teacher How closely related to hair are the setae
- 9:55am
- Bugscope Team a micrometer, or micron, is one millionth of a meter. it is also one thousandth of a millimeter
- Bugscope Team they are often called hair, even by entomologists, but they are not like mammalian hair
- Student What insect is it related to?
Bugscope Team Caddisflies (order Trichoptera) are closely related the butterflies and moths (Order Lepidoptera)
- Teacher do they take care of there eggs..=)
- Bugscope Team setae can be mechanosensory, like cat or rat whiskers, and they can be chemosensory, detecting smells in the air, or pheromones; they can also be thermosensory and help the insect gauge temperature
- Student how many eggs do they lay at a time
- Bugscope Team Females deposit their eggs in strands or masses over the water, though some species crawl beneath the water’s surface to deposit eggs. Emergence and egg laying are especially vulnerable times for a caddisfly as many fish, especially trout, are quick to take notice of the readily available food source.
- 10:00am
- Bugscope Team they dont watch over the eggs
- Student how long do they live
Bugscope Team Most caddisflies have a one year life cycle. They probably only live a few days as adults. I don't think the adults feed.
- Bugscope Team The female will either drop down eggs on the surface as it flies along a stream or she will try to crawl/swim to the bottom of the stream to lay some there
- Teacher What is the function of the caddis claw
Bugscope Team To hold on to rocks
- Bugscope Team probably
- Bugscope Team well, better that probably. I know that most caddisflies use their claws to hang onto rocks or onto the insides of their cases
- Bugscope Team the claws likely also help the larva seize prey, if they are carnivorous
- Bugscope Team not all caddisflies live in cases
- Bugscope Team they all produce silk, however
- Bugscope Team Some of the carnivorous larvae actually spin a sticky net to catch prey--kind of like a spider
- Student how old is this
Bugscope Team The larvae are probably less than one year old. It is hard to know exactly how old they are though.
- Teacher One student asked if you were all out of college?
Bugscope Team I am in graduate school. I am working on my PhD in entomology and I will graduate in May
Bugscope Team I have a degree in Physics and work in the lab full time
- Student where do you find this @
- 10:05am
- Teacher Is the claw jointed? hinged?
Bugscope Team The terminal segment of the claw is not jointed or hinged--although each segment of the insect body is jointed.
- Bugscope Team sorry Chaos is Cate right now
- Bugscope Team or vice versa...
- Student how much money do you make
Bugscope Team Not that much at this point
- Bugscope Team there now thats better
- Bugscope Team Chaos and I make more money than Annie because she is a grad student
- Student uh how big is the microscope..
- Bugscope Team soon Annie will metamorphose and go out into the real world, where she will make more money
- Teacher From this vantage point can you see the eyes?
Bugscope Team No, this is the bottom of the head and the eyes are on the top/side
- Bugscope Team the microscope has its own room
- Bugscope Team I sure hope so, as do my parents
- Bugscope Team the microscope is about the size of a large desk, but a little taller on one end
- Student how good is its seeing. can i see colors..=
- 10:11am
- Teacher We were wondering what mouth parts we were looking at exactly
Bugscope Team You can see the mandibles, the labium and part of the clypeus
- Bugscope Team I think these particular caddisfly larvae do not have eyes -- we have been looking for them
- Bugscope Team I stand corrected on eyes
- Bugscope Team if you go to preset 9 you can see the compound eyes on a stonefly larva
- Student when they see, do they see lots of things like, flies do?
- Teacher Where does the thorax begin
- Bugscope Team Each segment of the thorax bears a pair of legs. So the thorax start right where the head ends
- Bugscope Team the part where the crack is on the head is the compound eye
- Student if they break a leg will it grow back?
Bugscope Team they molt a few times. So they could get their leg back in the next molt
- 10:16am
- Teacher How often do they molt?
- Student Do they have the same body parts of a ant?
- Bugscope Team I believe they go through a number of molts
- Bugscope Team Crusteaceans molt throughout their lives--I think it depends on their nutritional state...if they are nice and healthy, the molt more and grow larger than less healthy individuals
- Bugscope Team I am not sure if there is a set number of molts.
- Teacher can you give us some points of reference?
- Student Is this a boy or a girl
- 10:21am
- Bugscope Team we have three different kinds of larva in the microscope, and it is hard to ensure that we are getting the info correct for each one. this is a blackfly larva, now
- Teacher ok we are all on the same slide
- Bugscope Team often with insects it is difficult to tell the difference between males and females, although females are often larger.
- Bugscope Team with larva I think it is even harder to differentiate the sexes
- Bugscope Team this is the head of the blackfly larva. they do not have legs
- Bugscope Team OK--STONEFLIES have the same parts as ants. All insects have six legs, two antennae, compound eyes, paired jointed appendages, and three body segments. The adults have two pairs of wings. The internal organs of stoneflies and ants are very similar
- Bugscope Team although there is a central footlike appendage below the head, (above, here)
- Teacher is it comprised of setae
- Bugscope Team let's go see!
- Bugscope Team this is the appendage, the single appendage on the blackfly larva that is said to resemble a foot
- Teacher Are it sensory?
- Bugscope Team it actually does resemble a proleg in a caterpillar, and it has little hooks as well, which in caterpillars are called crochets
- 10:28am
- Teacher Does it help to take in food?
- Bugscope Team i think it is used to help stabilize it in place-- like to grab onto things.
- Bugscope Team yesterday was the first time I had seen one of these
- Bugscope Team and reading about it -- well I didn't find the right thing to read, yet
- Teacher wow another discovery!
- Bugscope Team I think Cate is right -- that the blackfly larva attaches to the substrate at its base end, way above, and then it filter feeds, and that this helps anchor the head when necessary
- Bugscope Team if you drive north you can see the tail, which is more bulbous
- Bugscope Team yes Ms. Faville we are happy that you sent aquatic larvae, which we rarely see, but we are sad not to have ready answers
- Bugscope Team you remember click to stop from yesterday ;)
- Bugscope Team thankfully because of you, if it comes up again, we will seem maybe a little more knowledgable :)
- Bugscope Team this, on the left, is the smooth part of the porcupine quill
- 10:33am
- Teacher we also are raising brook trout in our classroom so this exercise ties in nicely
- Bugscope Team wow!
- Bugscope Team you can feed these larvae to them as a tasty snack
- Bugscope Team this is the tip of the antenna of one of the stonefly larvae
- Teacher we wanted a peek at the annentae preset before we left!
- Bugscope Team likely it is broken at the tip
- Teacher we are suprised to see that its hollow
- Bugscope Team I took an aquatic entomology class in college, but we do not have black flies in our area, so I don't know too too much about them!
- Bugscope Team we see that a lot--hollow antennae
- Teacher You're lucky you don't have blackflies in your area!
- Bugscope Team When the insect is alive there are muscle fibers and nerves that run throughout the antenna, but when the insect dies, those parts decompose rather quickly
- Bugscope Team that is a good point -- I was just thinking I was not so thrilled with the cold here
- Bugscope Team I know!! I have visited places where there are blackflies and that is not too much fun!
- Teacher Thank you so much for our session :)
- 10:38am
- Bugscope Team when you do bugscope, insects become prey
- Bugscope Team thanks again for joining us and letting us lok at your larvae
- Bugscope Team Yes Thank You Ms Faville!
- Bugscope Team remember you can visit your member page to check out the chat and iimages from the session at http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-110/
- Bugscope Team the same is true for yesterday's session
- Bugscope Team We are going to shut down. Thank you, everyone!
