Connected on 2010-11-22 08:30:00 from Matthews, NC, US
- 7:30am
- Bugscope Team setting up
- 7:39am
- Bugscope Team sample is pumping down
- 7:50am
- 7:56am
- 8:02am
- 8:08am
- Bugscope Team back in a minute...
- 8:13am
- Bugscope Team ok back
- 8:18am
- Bugscope Team hey good morning!
- Bugscope Team I haven't finished the presets yet'
- Bugscope Team if you can give me a few more minutes I'll have them all done
- Teacher Good morning! I have a class full of excited students!!!!!
- Teacher Will do!
- 8:24am
- Bugscope Team cool we can roll from here
- Bugscope Team go ahead and take control, and let me know when you have questions
- Bugscope Team ha Welcome to Bugscope!
- 8:29am
- Bugscope Team note that you can change mag, change focus, drive by clicking on a particular feature and the 'scope will center on that feature
- Teacher what is an ommatidia?? Love, Holly :)
Bugscope Team ommatidia are the individual facets of the compound eye
- Bugscope Team this is a broken scale
- Bugscope Team moths, butterflies, mosquitos, silverfish and very few weevils and beetles have scales
- Bugscope Team scales give color to the wings, and they also come off very easily; when you touch a butterfly's wing and the powdery stuff comes off, this is it
- Teacher THATS SUPER COOL
- Bugscope Team scales give those insects an advantage if they fly into a spider's web. they can leave the scales behind and slip out. sometimes...
- 8:34am
- Bugscope Team so here we see more ommatidia. those of moths are complex compared to those of an ant, for example
- Bugscope Team some ants don't even have eyes. but moths can see in the UV, which we cannot, and presumably the structure we see now helps them do that
- Bugscope Team the hexagonal shape is a good way to achieve close-packing of circular objects and also form a dome shape. like the houses Buckminster Fuller designed -- the geodesic domes
- Bugscope Team let me know if you have any trouble driving, and of course let me know when you have questions about anything
- Teacher what are the small dents on the ommatidia
- Bugscope Team they're torn places, wear from bumping into things, and handling
- Bugscope Team you can see a single small seta (a hair) to the left. presumably it helps the moth gauge windspeed and direction, like similar features on fruit fly eyes
- Bugscope Team this is a nice-looking ant
- 8:39am
- Bugscope Team the antennae are in the position we might want to have our eyes in. ants use their antennae much more than they use their eyes
- Bugscope Team you can see one of the eyes on the left side of the head there
- Bugscope Team and of course you can see the jaws, which open like little gates, from the side
- Teacher What here would be significant in daytime versus night travel?
- Bugscope Team even in the daytime, during which they could be undeground, the ant functions mostly by interpreting chemical signals
- Teacher Which part receives the chemical signals?
- Bugscope Team so it uses its antennae for that. chemicals in the air = pheromones
- Teacher ooooh that makes sense
- Bugscope Team if we look at the antenna, up close, we may find setae whose function is to sense pheromones
- Teacher That's really cool! How do I focus on just the antenna?
- Bugscope Team insects and similar arthropods have an exoskeleton, like a shell, and the tiny hairs (setae) we see are often sensory
- Bugscope Team you can use click to center (click on the screen) to move the antenna to mid screen
- Bugscope Team and then you can focus
- 8:44am
- Bugscope Team I'd take the mag down first\
- Bugscope Team it takes a little practice -- it's much easier here, at the microscope itself
- Teacher Thank you
- Bugscope Team some of those setae are chemosensory, some are mechanosensory, and some are thermosensory
- Bugscope Team being an insect is like wearing a suit of armor, for us -- we'd have to bore holes in the armor and have feelers (setae) sticking through in order to better sense our environment
- Teacher what it is scott O_o
- Bugscope Team you can see ants to the SE and to the NW
- Teacher this is a new group
- Bugscope Team --.--
- Teacher x_x
- Bugscope Team heh
- Bugscope Team here you can see the jaws, and the antennae, and you can almost see the compound eye on the left
- Teacher what part of the ant's legs helps it climb
- 8:50am
- Bugscope Team probably most of what allows it to climb is at or near the claw, at the end of the limb
- Bugscope Team I had taken us up to where we could see the compound eye, and the ball and socket joint of one of the legs
- Bugscope Team you can make out two claws in that jumble of limbs
- Bugscope Team a couple of the tarsi have broken off, and one looks like it was chewed off by something
- Teacher do the hairs have any adhesives on it?
Bugscope Team yes that might be more clear if you look at the fly claw
- Bugscope Team many climbing insects have little pads on their tarsi (the 'forearm' segments) called pulvilli that have, in turn, tenent setae on them
- 8:55am
- Bugscope Team so here on the fly's claw you can see two pads with tiny setae, pointing downward here, that help the fly cling to glass, for example, or the ceiling
- Teacher so are there 2 claws at the end?
Bugscope Team most insects seem to have two claws at the end of the tarsi
- Teacher now for another group
- Bugscope Team they can open and close the tarsi sort of the same way you might use one of those grasping extensions to reach something on a high shelf
- Bugscope Team there is a tendon inside the tarsus called an 'unguitractor' that makes the claw open and close
- Bugscope Team now we are looking at the legs and thorax of the housefly
- Bugscope Team this is probably a female housefly. in flies the males' eyes are often close together, like Mikhail Baryshnikov; and the females' eyes are fair apart, like Uma Thurman.
- Bugscope Team sort of...
- Bugscope Team the sponging mouthparts are in the center there, and they are a little dried out
- Teacher greetings we would like to look at moths please i love you
- Bugscope Team the things at the top of the head that are glowing a bit, with electrons, are the antennae
- 9:00am
- Bugscope Team ha yeah Thanks!
- Teacher because the label had said it was a moth head?
- Bugscope Team whoever is at the controls can adjust the contrast/brightness, click to see the presets on the left, and choose from among them to get the 'scope to drive to that position
- Teacher word, so was the other thing a house fly head? orr..?
Bugscope Team yes the other thing was the head of a housefly
- Teacher oh alrightty then!
- Bugscope Team the cool optical patterns we see -- the moire patterns -- are from the tiny fine features of the eye
- Bugscope Team ha a stinkbug!
- Teacher ha indeed!
- Bugscope Team you can see its domelike eyes, and one of its legs is in the foreground
- Teacher im not sure man our group did moth wings but we cant find them, it was nice talking with i appreciate you helping out our class
- Bugscope Team the tiny pores we see on the thorax are, I believe, intended to help absorb the scent of the stink
- Bugscope Team awww. are you done?
- Bugscope Team this little dude is unlikely to be able to climb well
- 9:05am
- Teacher soooo, what kind of bug is a weevil?
- Teacher this is a new group
- Bugscope Team weevils are sometimes called 'snout beetles'
- Teacher what kind of food do they eat?
- Bugscope Team so they are beetles, and a particular kind, but there are lots of them
- Bugscope Team many of them eat grain -- they are agricultural pests
- Bugscope Team and think of the boll weevil, which feeds on cotton bolls
- Bugscope Team you can find them in bags of flour sometimes
- Teacher can we see any parts of the mouth in this picture
Bugscope Team if you use the microscope controls to drive north, the head is there
- Bugscope Team I can cruise up there..
- Bugscope Team this is an uncommon weevil -- it doesn't have the super-long snout they often have
- Teacher what is the round cylinder thing
- Bugscope Team you can see one of the eyes, and most of the cylindrical things are palps, or antennae
- Teacher thanks so much scot! :)
- 9:10am
- Bugscope Team palps are accessory mouthparts, like little feeding utensils attached to the head
- Bugscope Team the palps help insects manipulate and also taste their food
- Teacher Hey this is a new group!
Bugscope Team yay! Hello!
- Bugscope Team this is the chemosensory tip of a palp -- a feeding mouthpart on this weevil
- Bugscope Team so this is kind of like tastebuds
- Bugscope Team be sure to take a look at the presets, to the left, and click on one you might want the microscope to drive to
- Bugscope Team you are controlling a $600,000 microscope from your classroom
- Teacher how does it function?
Bugscope Team pheromones or simple scents in the air are 'tasted' by those chemosensory pores
- Bugscope Team sorry not a very good explanation
- Teacher how do the pores function in an aquatic environment?
Bugscope Team if the insect was aquatic, or at an aquatic stage, its body would be a little different -- adapted for that environment
- 9:15am
- Bugscope Team I'm sure it could sense chemicals in the water
- Bugscope Team this is kind of cool, here.
- Bugscope Team the little pores we see have small flower-like components in them that are thought to help keep the stinkbug from having to be exposed to its own smell, which it does not like
- Bugscope Team so it may be absorbing that smell, keeping it away from its head
- Teacher oops - saw the cricked!
- Teacher new group - our insect was a cricket ... don't see one in the preset. what would be most simliar?
Bugscope Team I just clicked on the cricket preset
- Bugscope Team here is its head
- Bugscope Team it is very small
- Bugscope Team you can see that one of the antennae is busted off -- or to be an optimist, you can see that one remains
- Bugscope Team the thing to the left of center is the clypeus -- a kind of plate that covers the top of the mouth
- Teacher do mouth parts correspond with body size?
Bugscope Team yes if it was larger the mouthparts would be as well
- Bugscope Team most of what we see here are palps -- two pairs of palps
- 9:21am
- Teacher id like to focus in on the mouth
Bugscope Team in the very center are the tips of the mandibles
- Bugscope Team the mandibles open and close from the sides, like gates
- Bugscope Team the angled thing is one of the palps, which help insects manipulate their food as well as taste it
- Bugscope Team I think the little moustache helps it sort of filter its food as well
- Bugscope Team we see something like that on many insects
- Teacher Thank you so much! We learned a great deal and had a lot of fun! We appreciate your time. Our class is now ending here. We look forward to reviewing the images later.
- Bugscope Team the lower portion of where we are now is where the mandible tips join
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team See you next year!
- Bugscope Team I am going to move around the 'scope so that the places you did not get to go to are added to your database.
- 9:26am
- Teacher I look forward to it - I have other classes next semester and hope to repeat the experiment (hopefully the next time around we will be more savvy!) Did you guys get the bugs I sent or were these insects you already had (for planning purposes).
- Bugscope Team these are the ones you sent
- Bugscope Team if you have access to a computer lab, you can set it up so that students can log in individually
- Teacher Great! Next time I will make sure I better label the insects, too. Perhaps the next time I will provide more structure for the students' experimental questions - they seemed a little unfocused today! Thanks for all your help - you were great!
- Bugscope Team next time we will have more help on my end as well.
- Bugscope Team Thank You.
- Teacher We do have a lab - I will go that route next time!
- 9:31am
- Bugscope Team https://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2010-099
- Bugscope Team okay I am shutting down
- Bugscope Team Thank You again for connecting with us today!
