Connected on 2014-05-21 09:45:00 from Franklin, Ohio, United States
- 8:50am
- Bugscope Team sample will be out of the sputter coater in a few minutes, and we'll put it into the 'scope to pump down
- Bugscope Team it's 8:50 here
- 9:01am
- Bugscope Team now we're waiting for the sample chamber to reach the right vacuum so we can turn the electron beam on
- Bugscope Team if one of the big specimens outgasses, we may need to stop and take it out of the chamber
- 9:12am
- Bugscope Team almost there...
- Bugscope Team Hi Kate!
- Bugscope Team We're just now startting to set up for today's session.
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- 9:18am
- 9:28am
- 9:35am
- Bugscope Team we are ready to roll
- Bugscope Team Kate please let us know if you have any questions
- 9:41am
- Guest I am actually the teacher but couldn't find password.
- Bugscope Team I can give you control as a Guest
- Guest Great
- Bugscope Team you have control now
- Guest Roderick - why is it called a cucumber beetle?
- 9:46am
- Bugscope Team I believe it is because they are found on cucumbers, but it is interesting that they also resemble cucumbers, in their coloration.
- Bugscope Team of course if I was a beetle that fed on cucumbers I would want to blend in
- Bugscope Team you can see the palps, the mandibles (jaws), and the edge of one antenna
- Guest Reilly asks what is the "hairy" stuff on the mouth.
Bugscope Team those are setae, pronounced see-tee, and they are sensory hairs -- some sense touch, some sense hot/cold, and some serve as tastebuds -- they are chemoreceptors
- Bugscope Team some of the setae also serve to filter dust and debris, to keep them out of the mout
- Bugscope Team this is a portion of the stinkbug's compound eye
- Bugscope Team we are looking at individual facets of the eye, called ommatidia
- Bugscope Team we see, also, some debris on the eye
- Bugscope Team you can change mag, if you wish,, using the controls along the top of the viewing screen
- 9:52am
- Bugscope Team insects usually see most of the colors we do, but they can also, often, see in wavelengths we do not, as in UV
- Bugscope Team we can see a seta here that is likely mechanosensory -- it helps the insect sense when something is touching it
- Guest Amalie ask why are there differnt parts?
Bugscope Team the different parts -- all of the facets -- mean that the eye can be dome-like, and thus the stinkbug can see more at one time -- it can see around it better without turning its head
- Bugscope Team this is the head of the tick. when it bites the portions on each side fold down and away
- 9:57am
- Bugscope Team the head is called the capitulum, and the central part is called the hypostome -- it's the part that gets buried in your skin
- Guest Will asks how does the compound eye work compared to our eye?
Bugscope Team in a way it is not as good, but in another way it is better than ours because compound eyes seem to have a much better sensitivity to changes in the optical field, meaning that they sense motion very rapidly
Bugscope Team They have better sensitivity to motion as Scott has said, but their resolution is not nearly as good as ours. Insects that rely more on their vision tend to have more facets (ommatidia), and the insects that are in the ground and the dark tend to have much less
- Guest Marissa asks what are lines on top of the head?
Bugscope Team we see setae that help the tick sense its own body, and we see recurved spines that keep the hypostome stuck into your skin...
- Guest Does it suck blood from victim, like a mosquito?
Bugscope Team it does suck blood, but not quite the same way as a mosquito -- on the other side of its head it has a rasper that scrapes your skin to elicit the flow of blood
- Bugscope Team this is a true bug, which has piercing/sucking mouthparts
- Bugscope Team that is the proboscis; I believe this is a kind of ambush bug, which preys on other insects
- Bugscope Team see the dome-like compound eye, to the upper right?
- 10:02am
- Bugscope Team I should have said that the proboscic leads to the mouth
- Bugscope Team here we see some bacilli -- some rod-shaped bacteria
- Guest Caleb Stech asks what is the long line in the middle of the head?
Bugscope Team the long line is its proboscis, or its mouth.
Bugscope Team This particular one is an aradidae, or "flat bug"
Bugscope Team not much is known of their feeding habits
Bugscope Team supposedly they may feed on fungi
- Bugscope Team and now the most bizarre-looking fly
Bugscope Team that looks awesome
- Bugscope Team the things that look like worms are palps, which are feelers that help insects feed
- Bugscope Team we are not sure about this, but it looks like this fly bites
- Guest Cheyenne asks why are there light and dark spaces on the top of the head?
Bugscope Team it is so odd! the furry part is called the vestiture, and one thing it does it help other flies recognize it
Bugscope Team certainly there is some advantage in having that but I don't know what it is
- 10:07am
- Bugscope Team we think this is a parasitic wasp -- a wasp that lays its eggs in other insects
- Guest McKenzie asks what is in its mouth?
Bugscope Team This fly looks like it has a sponging mouthpart, so looks like that might just be its mouth? not entirely sure sorry.
- Bugscope Team flies have two wings, plus a set of halteres that help them balance the motion of the wings in flight
- Guest Tyesha aks is the big ball with little things on it eggs?
Bugscope Team it was hard to see for sure, but one of the balls we saw was another compound eye -- the facets were not as smooth as we see on many other insects
- Bugscope Team this is really cool
- Bugscope Team This is a tiger beetle by the way. They are those green beetles you might see hopping along on the path where there's sunlight and near areas of river banks
Bugscope Team they prey on other insects.
- Bugscope Team we see claws at both ends of this tarsus, and in the middle we see (the ridges) the pulvillus, which is a pad that helps the insect stick to walls and ceilings and things like that
- 10:13am
- Guest Katie asks what are the ridges?
Bugscope Team so the ridges are layers of fine setae, called tenent setae, that are sticky
- Bugscope Team so this is awesome -- these are absorbent mounds on the underside of the stinkbug that help suck up some of the smell so the stinkbug does not have to smell itself
- Guest Kyle asks can they taste through their feet?
Bugscope Team some can and some cannot; I would not be surprised if they had some chemosensors on their feet, like some butterflies do
Bugscope Team house flies for example do have taste receptors on their feet.
- Guest Scot we are switching groups so it will be about 3 minutes until the next group is in my classroom.
Bugscope Team Cool!
- Guest Caleb G asks why do they have these?
Bugscope Team we believe that they have them to help absorb the smell produced by the stink gland, which is nearby
Bugscope Team as the stink bugs do not like their own stink
- 10:19am
- Bugscope Team bee right back
- Guest We're ready when you are.
- Bugscope Team hi
- Bugscope Team Scott might still be out, feel free to drive around and ask questions
- Bugscope Team super cool, good to go!
- Bugscope Team This is the eye of the stinkbug.
- Bugscope Team now we can get an idea of the dome-like shape of the eye, which means it can see in many directions at once
- Bugscope Team some flying insects also have, in addition to compound eyes, three simple eyes called ocelli
- Bugscope Team each of those facets are called ommatidia, they work together to complete the picture
- Bugscope Team the ocelli help wasps and flies, for example, keep oriented in the landscape
- 10:24am
- Guest Raph asks do you think this looks like a honeycomb.
Bugscope Team it does!
Bugscope Team it has to do with the geometry, and how shapes pack together. kind of like a soccer ball
- Bugscope Team this is cool because we can see the four palps that the beetle uses to taste and also manipulate its food, since it does not have utensils like a fork or spoon or knife
- Guest Rachel asks what are the hairs on top of the head.
Bugscope Team we think that those are likely mechanosensory -- they are for touch and wind-sensing
Bugscope Team they are comparable to a cat's whiskers
- Bugscope Team the mandible looks like a fork
- Bugscope Team this is an adult tick
- Bugscope Team the younger ticks have six legs
- Bugscope Team you can see things like pincers near its head that it uses to perch on leaves
- Guest Kamya asks why it is called a cucumber beetle.
Bugscope Team Joe is an entomologist and thus knows more than I do about this, but I believe it is because they are found on cucumbers, sometimes
Bugscope Team they care called cucumber beetles, because of what Scott said.
Bugscope Team a lot of cucumber beetles are major agricultural pests and spread various plant diseases
- Bugscope Team the head of the tick is called the capitulum
- 10:29am
- Bugscope Team when it bites the two side pieces fold down and only the middle sticks into your skin
- Bugscope Team on this side of the hypostome -- the part that sticks into your skin -- there are recurved spines that hold the hypostome into your skin
- Bugscope Team on the other side of the hypostome, there are spines that are not as spikey
- Bugscope Team some times when you are out in the field, you may see ticks on the ends of a blade of tall grass, waving its two front legs around.
Bugscope Team this is a behaviour known as questing, the tick is actively searching for its next host. they can detect carbon dioxide and heat
- Guest Amaya asks what are all the lines going across the head.
Bugscope Team those help the tick feel when its head is put together, like now, and when it is apart, like when it bites
- Bugscope Team see the sharp ridges?
- Bugscope Team these things keep the hypostome from slipping out of your skin
- 10:34am
- Guest Yanni asks why does this bug have long line down its head and body.
Bugscope Team that is the proboscis -- it is a piercing lance-like mouthpart
- Bugscope Team bedbugs, for example, have one of those as well!
- Guest Nate asks how do they inject anesthesia and could this be applied to human vaccines
Bugscope Team I am not sure how they do it physically.
Bugscope Team the anesthetic is a small part of their saliva, so when they bite you, the anesthetic chemicals are injected along with their saliva
Bugscope Team there are also anticoagulants in their saliva that keeps the blood flowing (prevents blood clots)
- Bugscope Team we have been told that when we see three joints in one of these proboscises, it means that the insect preys on other insects -- it pierces the other insects' exoskeletons and sucks out the hemolymph
- Bugscope Team this is the wildest looking fly
- 10:40am
- Guest Angel asks why is it bumpy?
Bugscope Team Not sure, might have something to do with their environment, these guys tend to be in bark of trees
Bugscope Team sometimes when we see bumps up way close, they actually make the insect that has them look sparkly
- Guest LOL
- Bugscope Team sometimes the patches will give them different colors. I think scott thought this was a yellowjacket before it was in the microscope
- Bugscope Team if you look more to the north, i think its antennae look like bunny ears
- Guest Kaleb T asks why this fly has a mullet.
Bugscope Team it likes to party.
Bugscope Team it is so odd-looking!
Bugscope Team most likely, this has something to do with the fly behaviour, the hair location seems like it would be used for propriosensing (a sense of self) and possibly wind (during flight)
- Guest Elijah asks why do the eyes look like ears.
Bugscope Team if you had ears on the side of your head it would be best for hearing what is around you, so having big eyes on the sides of your head helps you see better in more directions at once
- Bugscope Team this is the head of the tick!
- Bugscope Team I am not sure, now, just what this is. It is one of the fly's mouthparts...
- 10:45am
- Guest Brianna asks what are the spikey things.
Bugscope Team they seem to be there to help filter liquids that might otherwise go right into this mouthpart
- Bugscope Team many flies have sponging mouthparts, but some -- like deerflies and horseflies -- have cutting/slashing mouthparts
- Bugscope Team I am a grad student
- Bugscope Team I work in the lab full time with Scot
- Guest We would like to thank you and ask if you are grad students.
Bugscope Team Joe is an entomology grad student, and Cate is also in grad school now
- Guest Thank you - TTYNY
- Bugscope Team I got a degree in English and Biology a long time ago and will not likely go back to school/
- Bugscope Team TTYNY!
- Bugscope Team Thanks!
- Bugscope Team over and out!
- Bugscope Team thank you!
