Connected on 2009-01-30 09:15:00
from , WI, US
- 8:48 am
- Bugscope TeamHello
- Bugscope TeamSetting up presets
- Bugscope Teamlet me know if you need anything
- 8:55 am
- Bugscope Teamdo you know what the beetle in preset 14 is?
- Bugscope Teamnot right off hand
- Bugscope Teamlooks like a carabid
- Bugscope Teambut the palps are really weird
- Bugscope Teamyeah, it is some sort of ground beetle
- Bugscope Teamthanks annie
- 9:00 am
- Bugscope Teamthat's my job :)
- Bugscope TeamHi timmy
- Guesthi
- Bugscope Teamdo you want to control the microscope for a little bit? Where are you from?
- 9:05 am
- Guestgreat, thank you. i'm from russia
- Bugscope TeamWow are you in Russia now?
- GuestYes :)
- Bugscope TeamThis is a wasp compound eye.
- Bugscope TeamAs soon as our school comes on we will give them control.
- GuestOk
- 9:10 am
- Bugscope Teamclicking on a preset will take you to that position on the stage
- Bugscope Teamawesome
- Guestthank you, Scot. what is this?
- Bugscope Teamif you take the mag down lower you can see where you are -- this is a pollen grain
- Bugscope Teamlots of pollen looks like this so it is hard to guess what kind it is -- like ragweed
- Bugscope Teamit is attached to a seta (which is basically just a hair found on an insect)
- Guestawesome
- Bugscope Teamhello trevor, welcome to bugscope!
- Bugscope TeamSorry timmy we have to have the controls back to the teacher
- TeacherGood morning
- Guestok, big thanks to all of you!
- Bugscope TeamThanks, Timmy!
- Bugscope TeamTrevor Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope TeamPlease let us know if you have any questions about the insects, or control, or anything else...
- 9:15 am
- TeacherThanks for letting us use Bugscope today!
- Bugscope TeamTimmy, our visitor from Russia, had been driving just before you got on. But you have control now.
- Bugscope TeamYou can drive, center, change contrast/brightness, focus, and choose from among the preset positions we made earlier this morning.
- TeacherWhat is displayed right now?
- Bugscope Teamthis is part of the claw of an ambush bug
- TeacherHow do we see the insects we sent?
- Bugscope Teamthe preset was number 11, which you may click on if you wish
- Bugscope TeamI am sorry but it looks like we did not get them yet
- TeacherWe mailed them in December but we were snowed out of our first viewing.
- Bugscope Teamthis is the pollen grain, on a seta, on the claw of an ambug bug
- Bugscope Teamambush bug
- Bugscope Teamokay, I am sorry, I think we did make that sample up for that day
- Bugscope Teambut samples do not last long, besides my having forgotten about it
- 9:20 am
- TeacherThat's ok. This is interesting too!
- Bugscope Teamthe tiny pore is a spiracle -- a thoracic spiracle on the dragonfly
- Bugscope Teamthe head is to the north
- Bugscope TeamCate noted this morning that when they die, they often die with their head/neck twisted at an odd angle
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the pores through which the dragonfly breathes
- TeacherHow do the students ask a question?
- Bugscope Teaminsects can close their spiracles if they want to hold their breath
- Bugscope Teamit depends on how you are set up there
- TeacherWhy would an insect want to hold it's breath?
Bugscope TeamUsually insects don't hold their breath. Aquatic insects have developed unusual ways of dealing with the whole problem of breathing underwater
- Bugscope Teamoften students log on from other computers and can talk to us directly
- Bugscope Teambut you can relay questions to us
- TeacherWe're using one computer to project to the students. We have a third grade class here.
- Bugscope Teamas scot said, it is fine if you just relay the questions to us
- 9:26 am
- Bugscope Teamthe reason I often think of them holding their breath is because we could put one in the microscope live and it could hold its breath until we let it out
- Bugscope Teambut we would not do that on purpose -- it would be mean
- Bugscope Teamhere we are looking at a sort of air filter within the spiracle
- TeacherWhat are the the branches and holes that we see?
- Bugscope Teama spiracle is like a nose, so just like our noses, they have hairs as well
- Bugscope Teamthis is where the outside air is collected
- Bugscope TeamI think there are usually two spiracles on each body segment
- Bugscope Teamthis is high mag
- Bugscope Team and a little OOF
- Bugscope Teamthe micron bar shows you how high the mag might be
- Bugscope Teamtry driving north!
- TeacherWe are trying to switch to preset 7
- Bugscope Teamclick to stop
- Teacherwe tried to stop!
- 9:31 am
- TeacherWhat are we looking at?
- Bugscope TeamSo because insect blood doesn't carry oxygen, each individual cell needs its own supply of oxygen. Insect spiracles are like nostrils on each segment of the body. The spiracles are connected to tracheae, which are tubes that divide into smaller and smaller tubes, tubes that are eventually so small that they are able to supply molecules of oxygen to each cell in the insect's body
- Bugscope Teamnow you can see the eyes, and the mouthparts
- Bugscope Teamwe usually mount samples with the ventral side up so we can see the mouthparts and the limbs
- TeacherAre these goosebumps?
- Bugscope Teamyes they are goosebumps, aren't they?
- Bugscope Teamthis is a more flexible portion of the cuticle
- TeacherWhat's a cuticle?
Bugscope Teamcuticle is just like what your fingernail is made out of
- 9:37 am
- Bugscope Teamspider!
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the palps, right in front of where the mouth is
- TeacherWhy are the claws curled under?
Bugscope TeamA spider has a strange kind of circulatory/"skeletal" system where it can only move when it creates lots of pressure in its body. That is why when you watch a spider move it runs really fast, then it stops for a while, then is runs really fast again. It is regenerating that pressure. When a spider dies, all the pressure is gone, so the legs curl up on themselves.
- Bugscope Teamthe spider has eight legs and two palps
- Bugscope Teamthe mouth we cannot see very well, but it has chelicers that are like jaws that move sideways, and fangs attached to them
- Bugscope Teamunfortunately we can't see the fangs this morning
- TeacherDo the palps hold on to its food?
Bugscope Teamthey help to hold/move around the food
- Bugscope Teamif a spider is bitten by something poisonous, like another spider, it can sense that and jettison the leg that is bitten before the poison enters the cephalothorax
- Bugscope Teamthe cephalothorax is the combination head and body -- spiders do not have separate heads
- 9:42 am
- Bugscope Teamhere you can see the edge of one of the fangs -- the smoother thing in the middle, sort of
- TeacherWhat kind of spider is this?
- Bugscope Teamthis is a little brown spider from my house -- we don't know just what kind it is
- Bugscope Teamnot a recluse, though
- Bugscope Teamyay the wasp!
- TeacherCan we see the stinger?
Bugscope Teamwe didnt see a stinger when we were doing the presets, it must be hiding
- Bugscope Teamyou can see, in a way, that wasps are related to ants
- Bugscope TeamWasps, ants, and bees are all in the insect order Hymenoptera
- Bugscope Teamyou can see one of the compound eyes, and the jaws, here
- Bugscope Teamand you can see more palps!
- 9:47 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is a sort of hinge on the jaw, which opens like a gate
- TeacherIt's not driving the the west
- Bugscope Teamcool it looks like you just drove over to the beetle
- Bugscope Teamthe mandibles, these jaws, are like our teeth--they tear and help manipulate food. Wasps also use their mandibles to build their nests
- Bugscope Teamit depends on where the cursor is
- Bugscope Teamwhen you click
- Bugscope Teamnow if you take the mag down a little you will be able to see where you are, perhaps
- TeacherCan you center on the jaws for us?
- TeacherAre these teeth?
Bugscope Teamyes, they are very much like a mouthful of teeth
- TeacherAre the indents spiracles?
Bugscope TeamYou could increase the mag on them, but the spiracles would be a bit bigger than that. Those look like pores from here
- Bugscope Teamsometimes the indents you see in cuticles give the appearance to the naked eye of a shiny surface
- 9:52 am
- Bugscope Teamlike shiny black ants will have a cool texture to their cuticle
- Bugscope Teamwhen you drive the microscope, each place you get to -- each image -- is stored in your school's online database. So all of the images you have collected are stored, and you will be able to access them later.
- Bugscope Teamwhoops the edge of the world :)
- Bugscope Teamnote that the images are black and white. that is because we are using electrons rather than light to collect the images we see, and the electrons that come back to the detector show up as 'signal,' not light. So the images are in grayscale.y
- Bugscope Teamhere is a good view of the individual parts of a compound eye
- Bugscope TeamAnd entomologists are not really sure why some insects have cuticles with such unusual textures.
- Bugscope Teamthe individual parts of the eye are called 'ommatidia'
- TeacherAre each of the squares separate eyes?
- Bugscope Teamif you had compound eyes you would be able to register motion much more quickly than we do
- Bugscope Teameach is a separate 'lens'
- 9:58 am
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that there are many hundreds to thousands of individual facets, individual ommatidia
- Bugscope Teamthere are still some mysteries as to what the compound eye sees, most think that each lens will see a part of the "picture" and relay each part back to the brain where it is put together
- TeacherWhat are the things on the lenses?
Bugscope Teammostly the stuff on it is "juju" or extra stuff that doesn't belong like dust or dirt, but in the lower part of the image you can see a single seta sticking up inbetween the lens
- TeacherWhy does an eye have setae?
Bugscope Teamin some insects, the setae found on compound eyes helps the insect detect the wind currents
- Bugscope TeamI'm not entirely sure that is the same deal here since it is so short
- Bugscope Teamthere -- to the right
- Bugscope TeamYeah, this seta is really short--maybe it is for sensing dirt or dust
- Bugscope Teamthe preset moved a little since it was made
- 10:03 am
- TeacherAre the long shapes setae on the beetle?
Bugscope Teamyep all those things sticking out are the setae
- Bugscope Teamthis is a very hairy "bug"
- Bugscope Teamwhen the cuticle, or chitin, has indentations like this, they can make the chitin stronger, and they also may be responsible for the iridescence we sometimes see
- TeacherDo all instects have setae?
Bugscope TeamYes, all insects have setae. The setae allow them to feel, taste, and smell their environment
- TeacherAre the setae in pores?
- Bugscope TeamI can't think of an insect we have seen that does not have setae
- TeacherDo all insects have a thorax?
Bugscope TeamAll insects have head, thorax and abdomen. All insects have six legs and one pair of antennae. Those are the requirements for being an insect!
- Bugscope Teambut they are not all in pores
- Bugscope Teamsetae can also be thermosensory -- the insect can sense temperature with some of them
- Bugscope Teamsome setae are sensitive only to particular odors
- 10:08 am
- TeacherWhat is the collar shaped part of the beetle that we're looking at?
Bugscope TeamBeetles have what is called a prothorax--the little roundish segment between the head and the elytra (aka the beetles hard shell-like wings)
- Bugscope TeamThere are a few other requirements, but the three body regions and six legs are the most obvious
- Bugscope Teamfor example the spider did not have a separate head and thorax
- TeacherWhat about a centipede? Are they insects?
Bugscope TeamNope--too many legs, too many segments
- Bugscope TeamThe first pair of legs are attached to the prothorax--but not any wings
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the ball and socket joint in the antenna, actually a couple of them
- Bugscope Teamthis is cool!
- Bugscope Teamyay!
- TeacherAre these setae too?
- Bugscope Teamthese are special setae that allow the insect to climb on walls
- Bugscope Teamthey are sticky
- Bugscope Teamgeckos have similar setae that are much finer, much smaller
- 10:13 am
- TeacherWhat makes it sticky?
- Bugscope Teamthey act similar to velcro or suction cups
- TeacherDo flys have tastebuds on the bottom of their feet?
Bugscope TeamYes, they have chemosensory setae that allow them to taste what they are standing on
- Bugscope Teamin this case it is probably the shape that makes it stick to a smooth surface -- as Cate says they are sort of like suction cups
- TeacherI meant to type flies
- TeacherWhat do they use their claws for?
- Bugscope TeamI am not sure if they are on the bottom of their feet or no--they are on the tarsi for sure
- Bugscope Teamthe last few segments of the 'arm' are called tarsomeres, or tarsi
- TeacherOur time is up and we have to go. Thank you for the interesting information and bugs!
- TeacherWe all had a lot of fun
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
- Bugscope Teamthank you for all your great questions, you did a good job driving as well
- Bugscope TeamThank you all!
- TeacherThank you
- TeacherBye
- Bugscope Teambye bye
- 10:18 am
- Teacher:)
- Bugscope Teamyou can access the images and chat from today at anytime by going to yoru member page at http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-122/
- Bugscope Teamover and out!