Mile High Academy
Session 2008-030

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Class

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Miscellaneous

Transcript

Connected on 2008-04-15 09:00:00 from Denver, CO, US

• 8:08 am
• Bugscope Teamsession enabled, rxl started, vac started, session unlocked
• 8:13 am
• Bugscope Teamvac okay, starting presets
• 8:20 am

• 8:27 am
• Bugscope Teamocellus

• Bugscope Teamthis is a Tuesday, meaning we may expect a visit from the Gutenberger around lunch time.
• Bugscope TeamI'm sure he misses the forum.

• 8:34 am

• 8:41 am

• 8:51 am
• Bugscope Teamhi jane, welcome to bugscope!
• Bugscope Teamhello
• Bugscope Teamwe are still making some presets for you and your students
• Bugscope Teamwe are done with presets now
• Bugscope Teamif you'd like to practice controlling the scope, it's all yours!
• Teacherwe are excited to get started
• Bugscope Teamokay, we are ready for you, feel free to ask any questions
• Teachernow what are we looking at
• Bugscope TeamThis is the edge of one of the legs of the roach
• Bugscope Teamyou can see some of the spines that run along the leg
• Teacherwhat are those poke lookng things

• Bugscope Teamthose are spines that have a sensory purpose, probably, and theyb also allow the roach to cling to a surface if it wants to

• Teacherah and those clumpy looking things
  Bugscope Teamthat is just dirt or some other sort of debris we call juju
• Bugscope Teamvarious hair-like projections in insects/arthropods are called setae, or microseta, or trichae
• 8:57 am
• Bugscope Teamyeah we often find dirt on insect cuticle

• Bugscope Teamroaches are generalists -- they are able to live in a great diversity of environments -- so we find few specialized features on their exoskeletons

• Bugscope Teamsometimes we will find diatoms on particularly dirty insects, especially if they have been in the water, or sometimes in dirt
• Bugscope Teamand sometimes we find bacteria
• Bugscope Teambut this seems mostly to be dirt
• Teacherwhat are diatoms?
• Bugscope Teamdiatoms are creatures with silica bodies that live in the water and have a variety of shapes
• Teacherah i see
• Bugscope Teamthey are phytoplankton, and Wikipedia says they are often unicellular. In this case we can probably believe Wikipedia.

• 9:02 am

• Teacherwhat is this?
• Bugscope Teamwhen you find diatoms in dirt what you find is the cell wall -- what is left of the body. and it is made of silica
• Bugscope Teamthis is one of the 'knees' of the roach, I think -- it is kind of hard to tell from this view
• Bugscope Teambe sure to try clicking on any one of the presets if you would like

• Bugscope Teamhey annie

• Bugscope Teamthis is something we found in amid the dirt
• Bugscope TeamHello all!
• Bugscope TeamAnnie is our entomologist.

• Bugscope Teamthis is the tip of one of the cerci on the roach
• Bugscope Teamthis is what makes the roach jump automatically if it is touched
• Bugscope Teamhi Bert!
• Guesthi scott

• Bugscope Teamthe roach has two cerci that project from its abdomen, sort of a rear guard
• 9:07 am
• Bugscope Teamthe atnt stinger is to the left just a bit
• Bugscope Teammany ants do not have stingers, but fire ants do

• Bugscope Teamhey jane, when trying to move to someplace close, click to center is a bit eaasier than click to drive
• Bugscope Teamthey bite to hold on and then twist their bodies so they can get the stinger directed into your skin

• Bugscope Teamyou are doing a great job controlling the scope though!
• Bugscope Teamthe sting does not hurt that badly, normally, but there are often a lot of stings
• Bugscope TeamBert where are you from?
• Teacherhow far do they inject the stinger
• Bugscope TeamI am not sure -- probably much less than a millimeter
• GuestI'am from Holland (the Netherlands) and i am finding out in a dictionary what it is.
• GuestIs this an insect?
  Bugscope Teamyes this is a red ant stinger
• Bugscope Teamyou can see from the scalebar in the lower left corner how long it is now
• Bugscope TeamThey inject the full length of the stinger
• Bugscope Teamyes this is an ant
• Guestthanks
• Bugscope Teamum = micron, one millionth of a meter
• Teachercan we see the head?
• Guestthat's very small
• Bugscope Teamthat's right -- a micron is the same as a micrometer
• Bugscope Teamthe ant is curled up a bit but you can take the mag down a little and drive to the north
• Bugscope Teamif you take the mag down a little you should be able to see where the head is
• Bugscope Teamas Cate says...

• 9:12 am
• Bugscope Teamnow you can see one of the antennae and part of the head

• Bugscope Teamthere it is

• Bugscope Teamnice driving!
• Guestthat's a nice picture
• Bugscope Teamone of the eyes is visible behind the antenna on the right
• Bugscope Teamyou can see one of its compound eyes on the right by the antenna
• Bugscope Teamas scott says...
• Bugscope TeamBert this microscope is from Eindhoven.
• Guestis it from FEI Company?
• Teacherthanks, is that the back of the head?
• Bugscope Teamgot it Dude
• Bugscope Teamthis is the front of the head
• Bugscope Teamnot much to look at
• Bugscope Teambut you can move in a highlight the eye
• Bugscope Teamif you want
• Guestcan you zoom in to the compound eye
• Teacherwhere is the eye
• Bugscope Teamto the right of center and up a bit
• Bugscope Teamjane, it's just a bit up to the NE, under the antenna

• Bugscope Teamit is the small mound on the right
• GuestI think the eye is where the antenna begins
• Bugscope Teamit's hard to see, ah there is a better look

• Bugscope Teamthat was a big jump

• Bugscope Teamhere we go

• Bugscope Teamit is tricky to control the 'scope, even for us, sometimes

• Bugscope Teamjane, try click to center instead of click to drive

• Guestthanks for the nice pictures, I have to go. Bye.

• Bugscope TeamThanks Bert!
• 9:17 am

• Bugscope TeamJane we can try zeroing in on it for you if you would like

• Bugscope Teamthis is the edge of the stub.

• Teacheryes please!

• Bugscope TeamNow you can see the eye -- the compound eye -- which is composed of a countable number of ommatidia.
• Bugscope Teamnotice all the individual facets on the compound eye, those are called ommatidia, each one having it's own lens
• Bugscope Teamif we could see all of them
• Bugscope Teamant eyes are going to be much smaller than say a fruit fly eye because it doesn't rely on sight so much
• Teacherthanks does it see color
• Bugscope Teamearlier we were trying to image the roach eye for you as a preset, but the compound eyes are so streamlined it is hard to see the individual facets
• 9:23 am
• Bugscope Teammany insects see color, and they may see colors we cannot see, but I am not sure about ants
• Bugscope TeamI don't know if ants can see color. Ants rely mostly on their sense of touch and smell to get around.

• Bugscope Teamto us, having looked at a lot of insects, these eyes appear very primitive
• Bugscope Teamoops not now though
• Bugscope Teamthis is a good comparison
• Bugscope Teamyes, now this is the compound eye of a fruit fly, notice many more ommatidia than on an ant
• Teacherwhat are the hairy things on it?
• Bugscope Teamso here you can see in between the ommatidia are sensory setae
• Bugscope Teamthis is the fruit fly eye, one of them
• Bugscope Teamand those hairs are called setae
• Teacheris that so that they can feel?
• Bugscope Teamthose setae are thought to help the fly sense wind/air movement while flying
• Bugscope Teamso they can feel the wind as they fly
• Teacheroh cool.
• Teacherhow many lenses do they have?
  Bugscope Teameach facet has a lens in it, so this fruit fly would have hundreds of lens's per compound eye
• Bugscope Teambecause insects have exoskeletons -- they have their skeleton on the outside -- they need to be able to sense their environment using probes that reach through the exoskeleton and connect to nerves on the inside
• 9:28 am
• Bugscope Teamchemosensory, i meant to say, spelled it wrong before...
• Bugscope Teamit's like if you were wearing a suit of armor -- you would not be able to feel things touching it
• Bugscope Teamthe antennae have a lot of chemosensory setae
• Teacherhow much presure can an ants exoskelton with hold?
  Bugscope TeamI can't find an exact answer. However, the hollow tubes that make up the exoskeleton are extraordinarily strong. They have greater resistance to bending and heavy weight than do solid rods made of the same amount of material
• Bugscope Teamwe could dodge the question by saying it depends on the ant
• Bugscope Teambut Annie is looking it up.
• Teachergo annie!
• Bugscope Teamtake the mag down a little if you would like
• Bugscope Teamsee where you are

• Bugscope Teamyou are driving a field-emission scanning electron microscope from Colorado

• Bugscope Teamwow, cool, look at all those setae!

• Bugscope Teamsometimes i'm still blown away by these images...
• Bugscope Teamthe samples are in a vacuum chamber and the electron beam is scanning across them, producing secondary electrons that give us the images we see
• Bugscope Teamthe background is silver paint, to the left, and carbon tape to the right
• 9:33 am
• Bugscope Teameverything we are looking at has several nanometers of gold-palladium on it to make it conductive
• Bugscope TeamFrom May Berenbaum's book: Bugs in the System
• Teacherwill you help us find its mouth?
• Bugscope Teamsure!

• Bugscope Teamthis is the 'mouth'
• Bugscope Teamthe part with the holes is the sponging mouthpart
• Bugscope Teamthe arm is going over it so it isn't so easy to see
• Bugscope Teamit is a spongy sort of projection that doesn't usually air dry well
• Bugscope TeamCate critical point dried this ant or we would not see it looking so good

• Bugscope TeamOops I mean fruit fly
• Bugscope TeamOnce insects morph into their adult forms, they don't grow or change any more. Larvae such as caterpillars increase the size of their head capsules, but generally remain pretty squishy---so they can grow larger without molting. Insects with incomplete metamorphosis, like cockroaches, have pre-adult forms that are identical to the adults, minus functional wings
• Bugscope Teamonce they have wings they are done
• Bugscope Teama lot of insects consume their food in liquid form -- they don't bite and chew
• Bugscope Teambecause most of the wings don't have a blood supply
• Teacheris that the tube they suck up fooooooood with
• Bugscope Teamand spiders, for example the one you sent, drink their food like a milkshake
• Bugscope Teamthere are tarsi in the way!
• 9:38 am
• Bugscope Teamyes in the middle of the proboscis is one of the arms
• Bugscope Teamthe forearm segments are called tarsi
• Bugscope Teamso our view of the proboscis is obstructed
• Bugscope Teambe sure and try another preset if you would like
• Bugscope Teamyou can scroll through them
• Bugscope Teamhi Chas!
• Bugscope TeamChas is the architect of this software and just logged on using his iPhone
• Bugscope TeamGood bye all...I have no more battery!!
• Bugscope TeamThank you all!
• Bugscope TeamWe lost Colonel Chas as well.

• Teacherwell scott thanks for showing us this wonderful bug but i would sure like to view all the wonderful things of a spider
• Bugscope Teamokay do you want to click on preset 4?
• Bugscope Teamoops five!
• Bugscope Team#3 is a spider, right?
• Bugscope Teamno no I mean three! ; )
• 9:43 am
• Bugscope TeamAlex is right.
• Bugscope Teampreset 3 is a cool spider fang.... arghghg!

• Bugscope TeamAAHHH, got scared for a second there, sorry.
• Bugscope Teamthere this is one of the fangs
• Teacherwow this is blowing my mind
• Bugscope TeamOne cool thing we learned today is that some millipedes have a secretion that sedates and immobilizes wolf spiders
• Bugscope Teamcoolness
• Bugscope Teamso the spider tries to bite the millipede and ingests some of the chemical defense secreted by the millipede and gets knocked out for hours
• Teacherno way that is so cool your so smart scott
• Bugscope Teamitstrue he is smart
• Bugscope Teamif we could see past the setae there we could see the poison pore at the tip of the fang
• Bugscope Teamthanks...
• Bugscope Teamwhen we mount a spider on a stub we have to decide if we are going to make it so you can see the fangs or the eyes, usually
• Bugscope Teamtry taking the mag down...
• 9:48 am
• Teacheron the tip of the fang nooo way thats awesome
• Bugscope Teamyou may be able to see the spinnerettes, to the south

• Bugscope TeamI lost track of where we are now.
• Bugscope Teamcan you take the mag lower, briefly?

• Teacherwhere are the eyes?
• Bugscope Teamspiders have the ability to reject their own legs if they sense poison entering them from having been bitten
• Bugscope Teamit's called autotomizing..

• Bugscope Teamwith spiders, it is difficult to pick one side or the other, either you can see the fangs or you can see the eyes, the eyes are on the other side facing the carbon tape
• Bugscope Teamthe eyes we will not be able to see because we are imaging the underside of the body

• Bugscope Teamtry driving to the south using the click to center feature
• 9:53 am
• Bugscope Teamif it does not work for you we can try it...
• Teacherwhere is the mouth
• Bugscope Teamthe mouth is about where the fangs are

• Bugscope Teamthis is something we will have to read up on
• Bugscope Teamthe spider injects venom into its prey and lets the venom digest its prey before sucking it dry
• Bugscope Teamso the spider is immune to its own venom
• Bugscope Teamkind of like stomach juices that are highly acidic
• Bugscope Teamthis is gross but when someone has bulimia and throws up repeatedly it can wear that person
• Teacherhey scott where is the area that the spider spins its web
• Bugscope Team's teeth down to little nubs from the acid
• Bugscope Teamit also eats its own webbing when it is done with it, or needs to repair the web, which is high in protein. So it kind of recycles the web
• Bugscope Teamthat would be down south of here Jane

• 9:59 am

• Bugscope Teamthat thing -- the thing that looks like a cactus -- is one of the spinnerettes, which produce web
• Bugscope Teamto the top now'
• Teacherthanks buddy whhere is it
• Bugscope Teamit is not so distinct

• Bugscope Teamthe tube we saw a second ago is one of the web producing nozzles, which are called spinnerets
• Bugscope Teamdepending on how you spell it
• Teacherthanks could we look at the legs
• Bugscope Teamspiders can produce sticky and non sticky web

• Bugscope Teamsure!

• 10:04 am
• Bugscope Teamnow to the north
• Bugscope Teamthis is the abdomen
• Bugscope Teamspiders are soft bodied and do not air dry as well as many insects
• Bugscope Teamyou can see one of the legs now

• Bugscope Teamthose are claws, amid the setae

• Bugscope Teamspiders cannot generally see very well, but they have lots of sensory setae that are very sensitive to vibration
• Bugscope Teamspider abdomens also sometimes go POP in the vacuum
• Bugscope Teamsometimes, as Cate says, spiders will pop in the vacuum and the microscope will be temporarily disabled -- the beam will shut down because the vacuum in the chamber is not good enough

• Teacherwe would like to go back to the fruit fly, we forgot to look at its wings
• Bugscope Teamcool!

• 10:09 am
• Bugscope Teamfruit flies are Diptera, which means 'two wings'
• Bugscope Teamdi ptera

• Bugscope Teamthey have halteres, which you could say were once a second set of wings, now modified to balance the movement of the two wings that remain
• Bugscope Teamthey used to have 2 pairs of wings, but one of the pairs evolved into halteres when are kind of like punching bags which stabilize the fies flight
• Bugscope TeamI think you can see the bottom of one of the halteres in this view
• Teacherwill you please zoom in on the wings

• Teacherthanks

• Teacherare the wings easily breakable?
• Bugscope Teamyou can see that it is covered with microsetae
• Bugscope Teamthe thing to the left, barely in the image we see now, is the haltere on this side
• Bugscope Teamthe wings are very fragile
• Bugscope Teamthey are made of a thin layer of chitin
• Bugscope TeamI think the tiny setae on the wings help add surface area to them
• Bugscope Teamwhich is the same stuff your fingernails are made of
• 10:14 am
• Bugscope Teamand help them catch air
• Teacherhow fast do they move
• Bugscope Teamso as Cate says they are as tough as they can be
• Guesthi
• Bugscope Teamhi danyelle
• Bugscope Teamfruit fly wings beat 9000 to 13000 times per minute
• Bugscope Teamand they are fast, but I am not sure how fast....
• Bugscope TeamHi Danyelle!

• Bugscope Teamthere is the haltere to the left of the wing
• Bugscope Teamthe round shaped object
• 10:19 am
• Teacherwhat does the haltere do?
• Bugscope Teamyou could say were once a second set of wings, now modified to balance the movement of the two wings that remain
• Bugscope Teamthe haltere beats opposite the motion of the wings and works sort of like a gyroscope to stabilize that motion
• Teachersweet
• Bugscope TeamI found another reference on line from a guy who has talked here ar Beckman before -- a fruit fly guy named Davidson. He says the motion of the wings is more like 200 beats per second
• Teacherwhile in flight do the legs help in any way?
• Bugscope Teamthe halteres have what are termed hypertrophied mechanosensors in the shaft part that we cannot see, and that is what senses and works counter to the motion of the wings
• Bugscope TeamI don't recall that the legs help with the mechanics of flight, although they may be drawn up a bit so the fly is more streamlined in the wind

• 10:24 am

• Bugscope TeamJane if you want try imaging preset 4 -- the little beetle
• Teacherscott, thank you so much for your time and answering our ???s. Our class is over
• Bugscope Teamall of these images are stored to your school's database on our web site
• Bugscope TeamThanks Jane!
• Bugscope Teamjane, thanks for doing bugscope, remember all your chat and images of the session are saved on your member page: http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-030
• Bugscope TeamAlex I bet is going to send you the link.
• Bugscope Teamthanks for sending the cool bugs. the small beetle was kind of cool for us
• Bugscope Teamoops beat me to it

• Bugscope TeamWe are interested in insects that have scales, and what colors those scales might produce. Structural colors.
• Teachergreat, we learned a lot
• Bugscope TeamThanks Jane!
• Bugscope TeamSee you next year?
• Bugscope TeamOver and out....
• Teachersee ya
• Bugscope Teamciao
• 10:30 am
• Bugscope TeamBye!
• Bugscope Teamsometimes we learn from bugscope as well. someone will bring up a fact that the rest of us didn't know. so it is a lot of fun for us as well
• Bugscope Teamokay, closing the session now
• Bugscope Teamsession locked, rxl stopped, session disabled
• Bugscope Teamjane, going to have to boot you off, but remember all your chat and images from today's session are saved on your member page: http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/memebers/2008-030
• Bugscope Teamciao!