Connected on 2011-10-28 10:30:00 from Delaware, Pennsylvania, United States
- 9:19am
- Bugscope Team sample is being coated now...
- Bugscope Team (in the other room)
- 9:29am
- Bugscope Team now the coated sample is in the 'scope; you can see it in the CCD camera view
- Bugscope Team so the 'scope is pumping down
- Bugscope Team we're waiting for the vacuum to reach an acceptable level so we can turn the electron beam on
- 9:36am
- Bugscope Team 1.6 x 10-4 mBar
- Bugscope Team going for 1.3
- Bugscope Team 1.4...
- Bugscope Team once we reach vacuum and turn on the beam, we'll make some quick adjustments to the 'scope and then start looking for presets
- 9:45am
- 9:51am
- 9:56am
- 10:03am
- 10:09am
- 10:14am
- Bugscope Team good morning, Ron!
- Bugscope Team welcome to Bugscope!
- 10:19am
- 10:25am
- 10:31am
- Bugscope Team you have control of the microscope, and we are ready to roll on this end
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-085
- Bugscope Team below is your member page, where all of the images and chat are stored
- Bugscope Team cool you just moved to the roach
- Bugscope Team you can change the mag, change contrast/brightness, click on a feature to center it
- Bugscope Team you can see the antennae, and you can see that the eyes are so streamlined into the head that they appear smooth at this low mag
- 10:37am
- Bugscope Team the head has tiny setae on it
- Bugscope Team now we're looking at the base of the left antenna
- Bugscope Team and a palp
- Bugscope Team now the mouth and the forelimbs
- Bugscope Team now we see another palp, and some spines on one of the legs
- Bugscope Team can you see the chat?
- Bugscope Team it may be that your screen resolution needs to be modified a bit to allow you to see the whole interface
- Teacher this is working
- Bugscope Team hey Cool
- Bugscope Team just let us know when we can help or whenever you might have questions about the insects/arthropods or how the 'scope works, etc.
- Bugscope Team this is the other small roach I put on the stub this morning
- Teacher hey
- Bugscope Team you sent a lot of specimens, and I put as many as I could on the stub, which is 1.75 in. in diameter
- 10:42am
- Bugscope Team this is the shaft of the antenna
- Bugscope Team scales on the top of the head of a moth
- Bugscope Team scales are modified setae, which is what the tiny hairs are that we see on all of the insects/arthropods
- Teacher why not
Bugscope Team ?
- Bugscope Team the scales are what give the insect its color; they also likely help keep its body temperature more stable
- Bugscope Team scales also help if you fly into a web; you can leave the scales, which come out easily, and perhaps just slip away
- Bugscope Team see the antennae to the right?
- Teacher nice
- Bugscope Team the other antenna broke off
- Bugscope Team the things on either side of the proboscis (we cannot see it just now) are the palps
- Bugscope Team this is the top of the head
- Teacher what color is it
- Bugscope Team you can also see, now, the facets (ommatidia) of the compound eyes on either side
- Teacher ?
- Bugscope Team this moth was a kind of dull brown
- 10:47am
- Teacher thanks!
- Teacher stinge available?
- Bugscope Team now we see some of the ommatidia on the yellowjacket's compound eye
- Bugscope Team some wasps can have as many as 17,000 ommatidia on one eye
- Teacher stinger
Bugscope Team I don't believe we can see the stinger on any of the insects in the 'scope today
- Bugscope Team but you are welcome to look for it
- Teacher aww
- Bugscope Team if you take the 'scope to the lowest mag you can use click to center to drive south where the abdomen is
- Bugscope Team or I can take us down there
- Bugscope Team see the compound eye with the antennae nestled up against it?
- Bugscope Team now we're moving steadily down the body
- Teacher yes
- Bugscope Team this is the thorax, which all six legs are attached to
- Bugscope Team south of that is the abdomen
- Bugscope Team bees and wasps, including yellowjackets, have four wings
- 10:52am
- Bugscope Team when they fly, however, they hook the fore- and hindwings together using those hooks called hamuli
- Bugscope Team flies, of course, have two wings
- Bugscope Team that was a surprise -- you had found the tip of the stinger there
- Teacher ok yeah
- Teacher we were very excited
- Bugscope Team flies balance the motion of their two wings using halteres, which are modified hindwings
- Bugscope Team the setae (the tiny hairlike things) we see are there to help the insect sense its environment
- Bugscope Team some setae are mechanosensory, some are chemosensory, some are thermosensory, and some are sticky; some are scales
- Teacher is this pollen?
- Bugscope Team this I am not sure of. could be frass
- Bugscope Team you will recognize pollen when you find it
- Bugscope Team there are different sizes and shapes of pollen
- Teacher what is that?
Bugscope Team what is frass?
- 10:57am
- Bugscope Team whoa!
- Teacher yea
- Bugscope Team this is the face of one of the spiders you sent
- Bugscope Team frass is what flyspecks are
- Bugscope Team insect poop
- Bugscope Team you can see eight eyes
- Bugscope Team and you can see the plumose setae on the cephalothorax
- Teacher sure
- Bugscope Team those are the hooks that connect the fore- and hindwings
- Bugscope Team called hamuli
- Bugscope Team when the yellowjacket flies, they are clipped over the edge of the wing to the right
- Teacher how did yellowjackets get their name?
- Bugscope Team I think it's because they are partly yellow. I can check.
- Teacher good to know
- Teacher yepo
- Teacher oreo
- Bugscope Team yellowjackets are wasps. sometimes the black portion of the color of the abdomen is red, so they would be red and yellow
- Teacher at
- Teacher mosquito
- Teacher its great[
- Teacher thanks
- 11:02am
- Bugscope Team this is the compound eye, the pedicel, and the antenna of a male mosquito
- Teacher amazing pic
- Bugscope Team the pedicel is the round thing the antenna comes out of
- Bugscope Team you can see a lot of web here
- Teacher thanks awesome
- Bugscope Team the ommatidia are wrinkled
- Bugscope Team but you can see the fine features
- Bugscope Team those round portions are very small - putting your imaging at the nanoscale
- Bugscope Team in comparison the ant's eye is not nearly as complex
- Bugscope Team ants rely on their antennae much more than their eyes, generally, to get information from their surroundings
- Teacher we have a new group of kids
- Bugscope Team ants are almost all female
- Bugscope Team when you see them with wings, those are males
- Bugscope Team unless of course it is the queen, who loses her wings when she enters the nest
- 11:07am
- Bugscope Team the vestiture is the 'decoration' on the head of an insect
- Bugscope Team that is the hinge of the mandible
- Bugscope Team insect jaws, when they have them, usually open side to side, like a gate
- Bugscope Team some of the bristles or setae or spines we see help the insect sense its own body
- Bugscope Team because insects do not have skin -- instead they have an exoskeleton -- it is kind of like they are wearing a suit of armor all of the time
- Bugscope Team the setae stick through the exoskeleton and allow the insect to sense its environment
- Teacher is there one male that fathers all of the ants with the queen ant,, allie
Bugscope Team the queen flies out and meets with male (also flying) ants from other areas in the air
- Teacher thanks
- Bugscope Team I am not sure if there is a single father or a number of fathers
- Bugscope Team the female flies out to meet the male ants away from her nest so that she will have a different complement of genes from ants that are not exactly like her
- 11:13am
- Bugscope Team here we can see the forked part of the mandible, about in the middle
- Bugscope Team the tiny limblike things are palps, which help the insect taste and manipulate its food
- Bugscope Team see how tiny the mite is?
- Bugscope Team you might not recognize it as a mite, but we have seen them before
- Bugscope Team the mite is about a fifth of a millimeter (200 microns, or micrometers) long
- Bugscope Team many of the mites we see do not have eyes
- Teacher how many did you see... Micah
Bugscope Team Micah usually when we see mites they are on earwigs, and there could be 15 or 20.
- Bugscope Team the mites hang out together on places the earwig cannot reach to dislodge them
- Bugscope Team hemolymph is what insect 'blood' is called
- 11:18am
- Bugscope Team hemolymph is usually clear, but when you smoosh an insect you may see yellow from the food it's been eating as well
- Bugscope Team the round thing there is the tip of an antenna
- Teacher Another mite?
Bugscope Team it's the very tip of an antenna, curved around the head
- Bugscope Team you found a diatom!
- Bugscope Team diatoms are one-celled silica organisms that live in the water
- Teacher cool!
- Bugscope Team their shells are made of silica, and you also find them in soil where water once was
- Bugscope Team they come in a variety of shapes
- Bugscope Team spiders do not always see well; they depend one their setae to transmit vibration to their senses
- Bugscope Team spiders have the ability to detach a leg, for example, if they sense that there is venom in it from another spider having bit them, for exmple
- Bugscope Team example, sorry
- Bugscope Team that is called 'autotomy' -- the ability to simply let one of the legs fall off
- 11:24am
- Bugscope Team all spiders eat by injecting venom into their prey. the venom dissolves the inner organs of the prey, and the spider sucks it all back up like a milkshake
- Teacher what is that?
Bugscope Team I am sorry -- I did not recognize that little glob of stuff on the eye
- Teacher what is that? ben
Bugscope Team Ben we are looking at the edges of the fore- and hindwings of the yellowjacket wasp
- Bugscope Team the curved things we see are hooks that can be used to connect the wings together when the wasp flies
- Bugscope Team they're called 'hamuli'
- Bugscope Team wasps and bees have four wings, and when they enter small places, like the nest, they can fold their wings up to give them more room to maneuver
- 11:29am
- Bugscope Team but if you had compound eyes wrapped around your head like the yellowjacket, you could see all around your head without moving your head
- Bugscope Team also, compound eyes allow you to sense motion very quickly, so if someone tries to smack you, you can move away
- Teacher are these hairs or spikes.. ari
Bugscope Team Ari we are not supposed to call them hairs because only mammals are said to have hair, but entomologists often do call them hairs.
- Bugscope Team they are also called bristles, setae (see-tee), trichae, spines, etc.
- Bugscope Team these are also setae, but they are modfied into scales
- Bugscope Team the scales are what you feel when you rub a butterfly's wings and they feel so silky
- 11:34am
- Teacher Is this pollon or mold?... Micah'
Bugscope Team Micah I think it is just dirt. But sometimes we just do not recognize things. We can see bacteria and pollen but have not see any yet today.
- Teacher Can we magnify thumbnails tomorrow?
Bugscope Team tomorrow you will be able to look at this transcript and all of the images you have taken today, but the presets (the thumbnails) will not work the same way.
- Bugscope Team you can see the ridges in the scale
- Bugscope Team that is where the pigment granules reside when the wing is colored.
- Bugscope Team but the shape of the scales and the spacing between the ridges also produces colors, called structural colors
- Bugscope Team this is much much higher mag than a light microscope will allow you to see
- Teacher Have to close up excellent ...
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-085
- Bugscope Team this is the address of your member page
- Bugscope Team Thank You for connecting with us today!
- Bugscope Team this was really fun for us
- 11:39am
- Teacher wonderful.... thanks Scot...Ron
- Bugscope Team thank you!
