Connected on 2008-11-21 14:00:00
from , TX, US
- 12:17 pm
- Bugscope TeamOkay setting up now.
- 12:22 pm
- 12:28 pm
- 12:43 pm
- Bugscope TeamIt still wouldn't let you in as a teacher?
- Bugscope TeamWelcome, anyway, Mr P.
- 12:49 pm
- Bugscope TeamSession is unlocked. Be right back. You should be able to drive...
- Guesthi my name is cameron are we ready to go
- Bugscope TeamCool Hi Cameron!
- 12:54 pm
- GuestAre we going to be lucky enough to get a scientist for our session?
- Bugscope TeamI am calling an entomologist right now.
- Bugscope TeamI am your Dial-a-Entomologist
- Bugscope Teamthis is the antenna of a housefly, right now
- Bugscope TeamHi Annie!
- Guestwat are we looking at
- Bugscope Teamthis is the antenna of a house fly, close up
- Bugscope TeamHello all
- Bugscope Teamif you take the mag down you can see where you are
- Bugscope Teamthese are sensilla on the antenna of a housefly
- Bugscope TeamMr P you should be able to drive -- is it not working?
- GuestNo, not working
- Guestgive the student the wheel!
- 1:00 pm
- Bugscope TeamHere we can see the head of the housefly
- Bugscope Teamthis is most likely a female because the eyes are widely separated.
- Bugscope Teamhello down there?
- Bugscope Teamdo you see controls on the student computer?
- Bugscope TeamMale flies generally have eyes that meet each other in the middle of the head--this increases their ability to detect females that are flying overhead.
- Guestgot it
- Bugscope Teamlike to the right of the chat box do you see presets? and to the right of the screen above do you see Magnify, Navigation, etc.?
- GuestWe are ready...
- GuestAddie isa asking about the eye
Bugscope TeamWhat does she want to know about the eye
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of one of the ant lions
- Bugscope Teamyou cannot see an eye on this, as far as I can tell
- Bugscope TeamI can only see jaws right now
- Bugscope Teamwhat we see is a droplet of fluid, probably hemolymph
- GuestCamille would like to know how old the ant lion is? or how long they live?
Bugscope TeamMost ant lions have a single generation in a year...but in some areas, there are probably multiple generations. So, I would say this antlion is probably a few weeks old.
- Bugscope Teamdrive the microscope
- Guestwe are driving
- 1:05 pm
- Bugscope TeamBut, it also probably spent some time in diapause as an egg or as a pupa
- Bugscope Teamthey resemble, very closely, owlfly larvae, which unfortunately we do not have in the 'scope today
- Bugscope TeamThe life history of each species of insect is a little different and it is hard to generalize
- GuestGabriel would like to know how big they can get?
Bugscope TeamThe largest adult antlion I have ever seen was about 3 inches long--they get pretty big.
- Bugscope TeamYou might want to try the "click to center" control, rather than the "click to drive"; it can be a little easier to get used to
- 1:10 pm
- GuestGabriel would also like to know if antlions will eat other ant lions?
Bugscope TeamI bet they would as larvae...they are voracious predators of any insect or arthopods that wanders into its pit
- Bugscope Teamnow you can focus, in steps
- Bugscope Teamsee if it gets worse, or better
- Bugscope Teamand go in the 'better' direction
- GuestRobert would like to know if they can bite or hurt humans
Bugscope TeamThey can bite--it sort of hurts, but not too bad.
- GuestBradley wants to know about those hairs
- Bugscope TeamSo, I should clarify---as larvae antlions dig themselves into pits in the sand. The larvae sit and wait with their jaws open until an ant or another arthopod falls into the pit-then MUNCH-the antlion eats the prey item. As adults antlions fly around. They don't live in pits as adults.
- Bugscope Teamthe hairs we see are called 'setae'
- GuestAdrian wants to know why they are called ant lions?
Bugscope TeamBecause as larvae, antlions bury themselves at the bottom of sandy pits. And ants fall into the pits and then the ant lion gobbles the ants up.
- Bugscope Teamant lion jaws have a piercing/sucking function; they inject poison into their prey to paralyze them, and then they suck the juices out of the prey
- 1:15 pm
- Guestdestiney wants to know how do they lay eggs?
Bugscope TeamFemale insects have ovipositors through which they lay eggs...the ovipositor sometimes is long and thin, and the mother will use that long ovipositor to lay her eggs deep in wood, under the soil, or even inside other insects.
- GuestThe class is asking about the big circle on the head
- Bugscope TeamCate just figured out for us where the eye is
- Bugscope Teamyou can see it below the round glob of hemolymph
- Bugscope Teamthe eye is the bumpy part to the far middle right
- Guestdo they have poison
- Bugscope Teamthe big circle is hemolymph, which is like blood to an insect
- Bugscope Teamyes they have poison that paralyzes their prey
- Bugscope Teamthe poison also makes the internal organs of the prey soften up and liquefy
- Bugscope Teamthey are much like spiders that way
- GuestWhat are their predators?
- Bugscope Teamthey also will eat spiders
- 1:20 pm
- Bugscope TeamThey are probably prey to birds and bats.
- Guesthow do they suck the blood out there pray
- Bugscope Teamtheir jaws have a piercing and sucking function, so the fluids in the prey go into the jaws
- Guestcan they survive in the water?
Bugscope TeamI don't think that antlions can survive very long in the water, although they may have some adaptations that can help them survive flooding. The larvae are usually only found in places with sandy soil, and I imagine some of those areas are along streams and rivers which occasionally flood. Antlions are not aquatic insects though.
- Bugscope Teammuch like the way spiders work
- GuestBradley wants to know what we are seeing at 20000x magnification?
- Bugscope Teamant lions are larvae, and eventually they will metamorphose into adults
- Bugscope Teamwe were looking at the cuticle very close up
- Bugscope Teamantlions have lots of tiny setae (hairlike projections) that help them stay stuck in the sand
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that it has tiny little claws
- 1:26 pm
- Bugscope Teamthere are two more antlions on this stub if you would like to click on those presets
- GuestCan we give you control so you can show us the eye?
- Bugscope Teamhere it is
- Bugscope Teamdid you see how we got there?
- GuestSo how do they work?
- Bugscope Teamit is just below the glob of hemolymph
- GuestAaron wants to know how to tell the female and males?
Bugscope TeamI am not an expert on antlions, but generally, female insects are larger than males.
- Bugscope Teamit is likely they have poor eyesight -- these are like simple eyes on a stalk
- Bugscope Teamit is a compound eye, the bumps are each a facet of the eye, the antlion probably doesnt rely on eyesight too much if they are this small and simple looking
- Bugscope Teamer what scott said, i was wrong
- Bugscope Teammaybe you could drive to the tip of one of the jaws and we could look for poison pores
- Bugscope Teamyou are doing a good job driving!
- Bugscope TeamI don't see any pores yet...
- Bugscope Teamwhen we look at spiders sometimes they are easy to see
- 1:31 pm
- Bugscope Teamhmm I don't see a pore, still
- Bugscope TeamI brought the focus up for us
- Bugscope TeamIt is kind of dirty
- GuestZach is driving...how about you take us to where you think the pore is Scot?
- Bugscope TeamZach is doing a good job. I don't see one yet.
- Bugscope Teamwe might be viewing it from a bad angle if we cant see a pre, or the dirt is covering it
- GuestAmanda wants to know where the jaws came from?
- Bugscope Teampore*
- Bugscope Teamnow we can see that there is an apparent slit along the inside of the jaw there
- Bugscope Teamit may be that the angle, as Cate said, is not good for us
- GuestCamille wants to know if these kind of insects have brains?
Bugscope TeamALL insects have brains. All spiders have brains, all crabs have brains, all millipedes and centipedes and pretty much anything with a head has a brain.
- Bugscope Teamthey have brains, and where the jaws came from? they grew -- is that what Amanda meant?
- 1:36 pm
- Bugscope Teamhere you can see two antennae, and smooth compound eyes, and ocelli on top of the head, as well as the jaws
- GuestHow big are their brains?
Bugscope TeamWell, it depends on the insect. I would say that an insect brain takes up about 1/4-1/3 of an insect brain
- Bugscope Teamwasp head!
- Bugscope Teamwasps are related to ants -- they are both Hymenoptera
- Bugscope Teamsee the facets of the compound eye?
- Bugscope Teamlarger insects have larger brains, but that doesn't mean that they are "smarter"
- Bugscope Teamtakes up about 1/4 to 1/3 of the head
- Bugscope Teamin fruit flies a large component of the brain is devoted to processing visual signals
- Bugscope Teamand it is likely that is true with many flying insects
- GuestHow does this microscope work?
Bugscope TeamCate put the samples onto an aluminum stub, covered with carbon doublestick tape. She helped stick them down and make them conductive using silver paint, where we cannot usually see it. Then she coated the sample with gold-palladium using a sputter coater. The sputter coater puts several nanometers of gold-palladium on the sample...
Bugscope TeamAfter the sample is coated, it goes into the electron microscope chamber, where it is pumped down to a good vacuum for viewing. We then turn on the electron beam, which scans across the sample...
Bugscope Teamthe electron beam causes what are called secondary electrons to be ejected from what we are looking at, and those secondary electrons make up the image we see.
- Bugscope Teamright, thanks scott!
- GuestThere is a comment that the mouth looks weird? How do they eat?
- GuestGabriel wants to know about insect blood. Why is it different color from ours?
Bugscope TeamInsect blood is not red like ours. Usually it is usually clear in color. The blood of (most) insects does not carry oxygen, and so it is not iron-rich like our blood. The iron in mammal blood is what gives it its red color
- 1:41 pm
- GuestAnd why is this microscope not in color?
- GuestAddie wants to know what we are looking at? These circular things
- GuestWe are going to switch to a different group. My 6th period class would like to thank you for letting us see our ant lion up close
- GuestA new group is coming up. Can we stay for a bit longer?
- Bugscope Teamyes you can stay a little longer. we will have to lose Annie, though...
- Bugscope Teambe sure to check out some of the other presets.
- 1:46 pm
- GuestI'll have a new group in 5 minutes
- Bugscope Teamcool
- Bugscope TeamI am sorry we had so much trouble getting started today -- we tried something we'd never tried before to get the logins to work
- Bugscope Teamsee the eye now?
- Bugscope TeamAnnie has to go turn in receipts so she can get reimbursed for an expensive meeting!
- Bugscope TeamThank you Annie!
- 1:53 pm
- GuestThank you! We have a new group here
- GuestThey wwant to see the eye. Scot, can you drive us there
- GuestCameron wants to know what the funny lookin symbol is on the lower left part of teh screen
- GuestJoe wants to know what the flakes are on the jaws?
- Bugscope Teamthe funny looking symbol is a Greek letter 'mu"
- Bugscope Teamthe flakes are dried insect blood, we think, called hemolymph
- Bugscope Teamthe Greek letter mu means 'micro' here
- Bugscope Teamthe 208 um is a micrometer
- Bugscope Teamthe eye is right below the blob that resembles an eye
- 1:58 pm
- Bugscope Teama micrometer is a millionth of a meter, or a thousandth of a millimeter
- GuestChris wants to know how many ants a day the ant lion can eat
Bugscope TeamAlso, Ant lions dont have to eat very many ants to survive, but if given the chance the ant lion would eat as many as he could and as fast as he could...if you had an ant lion in a habitat with 25 ants, that all the ants would be dead in maybe a month or so....but that is just a guess.
- Bugscope Teama bacterium, which we would be able to see if there were any, is two microns long
- GuestHenry wants to know their is a line in the circle of blood?
- Bugscope Teamthey often eat a small cricket a day in captivity, so they should be able to eat a number of ants, depending on the relative sizes of the ant lion and the ants, of course
- Bugscope Teamthere may be a crack in the blood droplet
- Guestjoe wants to know about the teeth we are looking at...about how many are there?
- Bugscope Teamthese are spines that help the antlion hold its prey
- Bugscope Teamwe could try to count them on one of the other antlions
- Bugscope Teamthere are large and small spines -- they look like teeth, though, don't they
- Bugscope Teamsee where it says 7 mu m now?
- Guestyes
- 2:03 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe microscope is magnifying the sample about 8500 times.
- Bugscope Team7 microns is nearly four bacteria long
- Bugscope Teamfour of the rod-shaped bacillus bacteria end to end
- Bugscope Teamnow a little better focus
- GuestHow far can we zoom in?
- Bugscope Teamwhen we use the electron microscope like this we are limited in resolution because we need to be kind of far from the sample in order to get low mag images as well
- Bugscope Teamso often we will not go about 20,000x. the microscope will take meaningful images at 200,000x.
- Bugscope Teamyou can zoom in a lot, but there is a certain point where you wont be able to see anything. Technically this microscope can be magnified to 900,000 but we never take it above 200,000. With insects we rarely go above 20,000x
- Bugscope Teambut as I meant to say, below, that would be at a shorter working distance
- Bugscope Teamsee the eye now?
- Bugscope Teamjust past the little antenna
- Bugscope Teamyeah!
- GuestCameron is going to take eyee us to th
- Bugscope Teamgood job driving!
- Bugscope Teamthis insect most likely relies more on feel than sight, it uses its special hairs to feel any vibration and movement
- Guestthank you
- GuestJoe wants to know Why are they shaped like that?
- Bugscope Teamthe eyes?
- 2:08 pm
- GuestNeil would like tio know what eats ant lions?
- Bugscope Teamthey can gather more light, and more information about movement, if they are rounded
- GuestHenry wants to know if that is a pupil?
- Bugscope Teamthat is a drop of hemolymph, probably, on the simple eye
- Bugscope Teambirds are a big bug lover, maybe lizards will eat them as well
- GuestScot we lost our student hookup. Can you give your control to Cameron?
- Bugscope TeamOkay Cameron has it
- GuestCameron lost the presets..but we will work around it
- Bugscope Teamit looks like he has them now... ?
- 2:13 pm
- GuestWe got it
- Bugscope Teammite!
- Bugscope Teamthis is a mite on the antenna of an earwig
- Bugscope Teamsee where it is on the body?
- GuestNo, we lost it
- Bugscope Teamit is south of here
- GuestJacob wants to know about that big black hole
- Bugscope Teamthis is similar to the fluid we saw on the antlion head
- Bugscope Teamthe hole is where the fluid, of some sort, left an opening
- Bugscope Teamit is stuck to that palp
- Bugscope Teama palp is a feeding mouthpart
- Bugscope Teamsee the compound eye?
- Bugscope Teamthere is also web on this
- Bugscope Teamthis was a pretty dirty earwig, it looked a lot worse than this before i put it on the stub
- GuestScot, can you take us to the mite?
- 2:18 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is a different mite -- on the leg
- Guestthank you
- Bugscope Teamits head is tiny, and it does not have eyes
- Bugscope TeamHey no problem Cameron.
- Bugscope Teamwhen the earwig dies the mites will die as well
- Bugscope Teamalthough it looks like these mites cruised around for awhile after their host died
- GuestNeil wants to know how does it know where it is going without eyes?
- Bugscope Teamthis is as much of the head as we have ever seen
- Bugscope Teamit has lots of feelers to sense its way around the body
- Bugscope Teammites need to be able to get into spots where they won't be rubbed off
- Bugscope Teamand we don't know just how they do that
- Bugscope Teamants dont use their eyesight too much, they use their antennae, the same thing is true here
- Guesthow many eyes do ants really have or at least an estiment
- Bugscope Team some ants are blind or have very simple eyes
- 2:23 pm
- Bugscope Teamsome have maybe 10 or 12 ommatida per eye, some have many more, comparable to a flying insect
- GuestScott, the class wants to see the "end" of the insect. We are going to learn about excretory systems soon!
- GuestCan you take us there?
- Bugscope Teamand as I said some do not bother to have eyes, but as Cate said they use their antennae quite a bit
- Bugscope Teamhere are the cerci
- Bugscope Teamaka pinchers
- Bugscope Teamthese are cercopods, or cerci, as Cate says
- GuestDalton wants to know what the cerci are?
- Guestthank you
- Bugscope Teamthe cerci are pinchers that the earwig uses to defend itself
- GuestWhy does it have pinchers in the back?
- Guesthow do ants bite you
- Bugscope Teamif you try to pick one up it will try to pinch you with its cerci
- Bugscope Teamants have jaws they can bite you with, and some have stingers as well
- Bugscope TeamI am not sure why earwigs have pinching tails, but it works for them
- Guestwe are going to look at the ant. Scot? Are these the ants I sent?
- Bugscope Teamthey are defensive
- Bugscope Teamwe were not able to put the ants you sent on the stub, but we did look at them
- 2:28 pm
- Bugscope Teamthey did not have wounds we could see; it may be that the antlions were not able to find them
- GuestCan you take us to the ant preset? We re having problems
- Bugscope Teamthe antlions were not hungry on their trip here, or maybe they did not want to eat dead ants
- Bugscope Teamsee the jaw?
- Guestthank you!
- Bugscope Teamthis one is hairy
- Bugscope Teamit makes it looks like it has whiskers, which is how these hairs act
- GuestThey want to know if you can tell a male from a female ant lion?
- GuestDaniel wants to know if ant lions will eat each other?
- Bugscope TeamSometimes, as Annie said, females are bigger than males in the insect world.
- 2:33 pm
- Bugscope Teamthey are vicious, and we think they would likely eat each other
- Bugscope Teamsometimes with insects you cannot tell the difference between the sexes until you cut them open
- GuestChris wants to know how do ant lions reproduce?
- Bugscope Teamwhen they become adults they are flying insects kind of like dragonflies
- Bugscope Teamcertainly they lay eggs, but I am not sure where
- Guestwhat is all the stringy stuff
- Bugscope Teamthey are likely not asexual, but some insects and other animals can reproduce asexually if they are stressed
- Bugscope Teamthe stringy stuff is mostly fungus
- Bugscope Teamit is funny we have seen this on owlfly larvae as well
- GuestThank you very much!!! My 2nd group is done and I appreciate what you do for us...see you again next year!
- Bugscope Teamowlflies are related to antlions, and the larvae look very similar
- Bugscope Teamthank you for all your questions and your great driving
- Bugscope Teamantlions are larval insects as well, of course
- GuestMy 7th period callas thanks you very much as do I
- Bugscope Teamyes Thank you!
- Bugscope Teamif you go to your member page http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-104/ you can access chat and images from today
- Bugscope TeamThank you for letting us see antlions for the first time in bugscope!
- 2:39 pm
- Guestwe will. We are going to write about it for our school paper. I will sned you a copy if you like!
- Guestthank you so much for taking some time out of your day just to answer our questions
- Bugscope Teamthat would be great, we look forward to it
- Bugscope TeamYeah, Cool. Sounds great!
- Bugscope TeamThank you Cameron.
- Bugscope TeamWe will look forward to seeing you next year.