Connected on 2010-06-10 11:00:00 from Lethbridge, AB, CA
- 10:14am
- Bugscope Team good morning!
- Bugscope Team naturek8 if you are still there we are getting ready to set up for today's session
- 10:21am
- Bugscope Team That looks neat!
- Bugscope Team Cate found it.
- 10:27am
- 10:32am
- 10:38am
- 10:45am
- Teacher We are just going to head out to recess, we will see you at 11:20
- Teacher We are just about to head out for recess, we will see you at 11:20
- Bugscope Team Thank You see you in a little while.
- Bugscope Team this is Scott
- Teacher hi
- Teacher hello
- Bugscope Team Hello!
- 10:50am
- Teacher hello
- Bugscope Team Mrs B can you see our replies?
- 10:59am
- Bugscope Team hi T!
- Teacher yes, we can now
- Teacher see you at 11:20
- Bugscope Team oops Cool I was just calling
- Bugscope Team good deal see you soon
- 11:11am
- Bugscope Team Very cool
- 11:21am
- Teacher what is that insect?
- Bugscope Team this is a fruit fly
- Teacher we are ready
- Bugscope Team this is a closeup of one of the eyes
- Bugscope Team you now have control of the microscope
- Bugscope Team you can take the magnification down, for example, to see where you are at the moment
- Bugscope Team you can also click on any one of the presets and the microscope will drive to that location
- Teacher how do we zoom out
- Bugscope Team on the top right, next to the image, you should see controls that say Magnify, + -
- Teacher what are the leaf things pointing up?
- Bugscope Team if you click on the minus it will zoom out
- Bugscope Team under the "Magnification" heading
- Teacher can you zoom out for us
- Bugscope Team the things that are pointing up are setae -- tiny insect hairs.
- Bugscope Team those seate are mechanosensory -- that is, they sense the wind, in this case
- Bugscope Team oops I meant to type 'setae'
- Bugscope Team this is the top of the head of the fruit fly
- Teacher what is it?
- Bugscope Team and we are now looking at three domes that are called ocelli -- they are also eyes
- Teacher what are the bumps for?
- Teacher can you zoom out more?
- 11:26am
- Bugscope Team the ocelli are called 'simple' eyes -- the bumps.
- Bugscope Team there now you can see the whole head and part of the body
- Bugscope Team the head is center right
- Bugscope Team and the thorax -- the 'chest' -- is to the left of the head
- Teacher ccan you zoom out more?
- Bugscope Team you can see a wing in the lower left corner
- Bugscope Team the bubbles you see around the fruit fly is the carbon tape with some silver paint on it, This is how we fix the insects on the specimen holder
- Bugscope Team there you go!
- Teacher cool! can we zoom in on the wing
- Bugscope Team fruit flies are true flies, which are called Diptera, which means 'two wings'
- Teacher is that a rip in the wing?
Bugscope Team Yes but it happened after it died most likely. Once insects die they dry out and become brittle.
- Bugscope Team the wing has tiny setae on it too
- Teacher what kills a fruit fly?
Bugscope Team they are very small, so they can get eaten by larger insects, and they can get squished because sometimes they don't pay attention as much as 'normal' flies
- Teacher what is the strongest bug?
Bugscope Team it could be an ant
Bugscope Team Ants can lift about 10 times their weight,but a species of dung beetle can pull more than 1000 times its body weight, making it the world's strongest insect.
Bugscope Team One study says the dung beetle is the strongest insect, although there is a mite that's stronger but is an arachnid, not an insect
- Teacher can we see what the legs are like?
- 11:31am
- Teacher where do you get the bugs?
Bugscope Team Sometimes we bring them from our own houses, we get donations from the entomology department, and we occasionally have left-overs from samples schools send in
- Bugscope Team oh and its 50 times for ants forry
- Bugscope Team sorry*
- Bugscope Team it is hard to see the ends of the legs on this fruit fly, which is likely why we didn't get any presets of them for you
- Bugscope Team you can image a colony of dung beetles carrying off a cow patty
- Bugscope Team ew
- Teacher haha
- Teacher how long ago did tis fruit fly die
Bugscope Team we've had this fruit fly for quite a few years actually. Maybe around 4 years
Bugscope Team I think it is one we have had for a year or so
- Teacher what is the hole for?
Bugscope Team the hole is a spiracle, which is one of a number of breathing pores that insects have
- Bugscope Team oops don't listen to me -- Cate has a better sense of time, and she makes most of the samples
- Teacher how did you pick it up?
Bugscope Team We use small sharp-tipped tweezers called forceps to position the insects on the sample stub
- 11:36am
- Bugscope Team this is the head of a mosquito!
- Bugscope Team see the eyes!
- Teacher what is the tube like thing?
Bugscope Team the tube is the fascicle which holds the mouth parts of the mosquito
- Bugscope Team the eye facets, called ommatidia, are the little round things
- Teacher how many eyes does it have?
Bugscope Team it has two compound eyes, but we can see that they themselves have hundreds of facets
- Teacher what is the thing that they suck blood out of called?
Bugscope Team the proboscis, same thing we call an elephant's trunk!
- Bugscope Team or facscicle, as Cate said
- Teacher can mosquitos suck blood out of human eyes?
Bugscope Team they would be better off to try to get blood from very near the eye, since it doesn't have blood inside it
Bugscope Team As long as the tiny veins aren't too deep, then it seems plausible. However, mosquitoes may not think it's a place to eat since the temperature and chemical signatures would be quite different than skin
- Bugscope Team fascicle likely refers to the observation that the inner components of the biting parts are pressed together like fasces.
- Teacher can you zoom in on the tongue?
- 11:41am
- Teacher what is the whole for in the top left corner?
Bugscope Team that was the pedicel -- the base of one of the antennae
- Bugscope Team more likely place is your eyelid
- Teacher what are the things inside?
Bugscope Team the things inside include a siphon tube that transports the blood to the head to the guy, and four stylets that cut your skin, and one more part that I am not sure what its purpose is.
- Bugscope Team this is the tip of the proboscis, but this mosquito does not bite -- it is a male mosquito
- Teacher have you ever gotten a dragonfly?
Bugscope Team yes but they are usually too big to look at with this microscope. Sometimes we can look at the younger ones or just their heads
- Bugscope Team the siphon tube has a separate small duct next to it that forces saliva into the wound
- Teacher what kind of beetle is it?
Bugscope Team maybe Cate knows? it is large and has an interesting divided body
- Bugscope Team Dragonfly heads fall off very easily, even when they are alive.
- 11:47am
- Bugscope Team I'm not sure. It's some sort of black beetle
- Teacher do you have a picture of a drangonfly that you could send us?
Bugscope Team if you go to the Bugscope home page and click 'look around,' you can request dragonfly images from previous sessions.
Bugscope Team Because this is live, we can only see what's in the prepared sample. This is a link to a search of our previous sessions for dragonflies: http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/search.php?q=dragonfly
- Bugscope Team we are looking at the underside of the head, and we can see the mandibles folded at the top
- Bugscope Team the search feature will find them for you
- Bugscope Team this is an ant
- Teacher what's the thing in the center of it;s head?
Bugscope Team that is it's mouth and mouthparts. It has little feelers around its mouth called palps that look like little legs
- Bugscope Team ants have very busy mouths
- Bugscope Team so we can see two sets of palps, which are accessory mouthparts that help with feeding, and we can see the mandibles, crossed...
- Bugscope Team the palps help the insect to taste and manipulate food
- Teacher can we see a close up of the antennea?
- Bugscope Team ants do a lot of 'texting' using their antennae
- Bugscope Team they can smell things with them, for example, so it would be a scent text
- 11:53am
- Bugscope Team the antennae help the ant communicate with the other ants, and sometimes the communications are via chemical scent.
- Teacher how come there are hairs on the antennae?
Bugscope Team in this case many of the hairs, or setae, are not mechanosensory but chemosensory -- they are like smell detectors
- Bugscope Team they help the insects feel what's going on around it through its hard shell
- Bugscope Team this is the ant's compound eye
- Teacher ccan we see the abdomen?
- Bugscope Team there is the abdomen. which ant people call the 'gaster.'
- Teacher is that the abdomen?
Bugscope Team yes in the center of the screen now
- Teacher can we zoom in a little more?
Bugscope Team it looks kind of like sheets of armor, doesn't it?
- 11:58am
- Bugscope Team some ants have stingers, and some have little turrets that squirt formic acid from their gaster -- from their abdomen
- Bugscope Team this is a handsome ladybug
- Teacher how many bugs are there in the world?
Bugscope Team there are hundreds of thousands of species, and there are many that have not been named yet
- Teacher what is the thing on the bottom part of his head?
- Teacher what are the two pipe looking things on each side?
Bugscope Team the vacuum cleaner nozzles are palps on the ladybug, the little horns are palps as well
- Teacher what kind of ladybug is it?
Bugscope Team this is probably an Asian lady beetle
- Bugscope Team they help taste and move around food
- 12:03pm
- Teacher can we see the wings?
- Bugscope Team wings are usually hidden under the elytra
- Bugscope Team the elytra is the back shell covering that when it flies lifts away
- Bugscope Team yes as Cate says they are hidden under the elytra -- the shell on the back
- Bugscope Team this is sugar, and it has a butterfly or moth scale stuck to it at the top left
- Bugscope Team tiny little sugar crystals
- Bugscope Team other insects that have scales are mosquitoes, which we have seen, and silverfish, and very few weevils and beetles
- 12:08pm
- Teacher that is very neat
- Teacher our class is really enjoying this
- Bugscope Team this is what a black scale looks like up close
- Bugscope Team Cool!
- Bugscope Team we are glad to hear that!
- Bugscope Team this is something we do not see often -- the tip of a spider's leg
- Teacher what kind of spider is it?
Bugscope Team we aren't really sure. It is small so it's not a black widow or a brown recluse
- Bugscope Team you can see one of its claws here
- Teacher where is the claw?
- Bugscope Team the claw is mostly hidden, but we can see it in the very center, curved upward, to the right
- Bugscope Team the little pads with it have tiny sticky setae on it that help the spider climb walls, for example
- 12:14pm
- Teacher how long ago did it die?
Bugscope Team this one died in the last year sometime
- Bugscope Team here you can see another scale, to the right, and lots of frond-like setae that we think are vibration-sensing
- Teacher we have to get ready for gym now, our class really enjoyed the session and we learned a lot!!!! Thank you so much for spending this time with us.
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2010-038/
- Teacher This is the second time that I have done this with a grade two class it was wonderful
- Bugscope Team just below is your member page, where you can look up this session
- Bugscope Team Mrs B that is great!
- Bugscope Team glad you all had fun
- Bugscope Team Thank You for letting us know.
