Connected on 2010-04-07 11:30:00
from Hood River, OR, US
- 10:13 am
- Bugscope Teampumping down. early
- 10:29 am
- Bugscope Teamstarting presets...
- 10:36 am
- 10:42 am
- 10:48 am
- 10:54 am
- 11:03 am
- Bugscope Teampresets done, we are ready
- 11:10 am
- 11:15 am
- Bugscope Teamwelcome to bugscope!
- Bugscope TeamHi Christy!
- Bugscope Teamwelcome to bugscope
- 11:20 am
- Bugscope Teamlet us know when you have questions
- Bugscope Teamcan you see all of the chatbox, and the controls, and the presets?
- 11:28 am
- Bugscope TeamHi Columbia!
- GuestHi. Thanks for letting us join. We have a session scheduled in a few week. I can see a small chatbox.
- Bugscope TeamColumbia you may wish to expand your screen, or change your screen resolution
- Bugscope Teamwelcome welcome. we are about to start a session with Wyeast Middle School, but we can answer any questions you may have, just ask away
- GuestWhat is a Tenent Setae?
Bugscope Teamthey are special hairs on some insects that are found by their "foot". They help the insect walk on walls or other vertical surfaces
Bugscope TeamThe setae together form the pulvillus, a pad near the claw/foot of some insects which often has an adhesive on it to help them stick to walls and other surfaces
- GuestThanks. We're looking forward watching the middle school session.
- Bugscope Teamms. hillen, are you having any problems? we are ready for you anytime
- 11:33 am
- GuestWhats an aphid?
Bugscope Teamthey are a plant pest that you sometimes see flying around or eating leaves. They are small true bugs, which means they have a proboscis used to eat liquids
- TeacherWe are up and running. Yes we see the controls
Bugscope Teamgreat! go ahead and control the scope as you wish, try clicking on a preset, or increase the magnification. and just start asking us any questions you have
- Bugscope Teamgreat!
- Bugscope Teamaphids can also migrate long distances, mainly by riding the winds
- Bugscope Teamladybugs like to eat them. they help keep their populations under control
- Bugscope Team(even though to me, the ladybugs are pests too since I have to vacuum them up all the time)
- Bugscope Teamsome aphids form a symbiotic relationship with ants where the aphid secretes a sugary substance which the ants eat, and in return the ants protect and transport them -- almost like a herd of sheep
- Teacherwhat kind of animal is this on
Bugscope Teamthis is an aphid we found on a japanese beetle. They are a type of true bug and they are a pest to plants
- 11:39 am
- Teacherdo u always find aphids on japenese beatels
Bugscope Teamno we don't. I don't know how it happened, but they got stuck together
- Teacherdo you know how they got together?
Bugscope Teamit's possible they died together or when we got them they got a little jumbled and then got stuck together
- Bugscope Teamaphids are softbodied, like spiders and dustmites. so when they die, if we did not preserve them in ethanol and then critical point dry them, they shrivel up
- Bugscope Teamsome aphids fly, but many, probably most, do not
- 11:44 am
- Bugscope Teamsee the fruit fly's compound eyes, and its antennae?
- Bugscope Teamthe antennae have am thick pad-like component and a branched component that is a little hard to see now
- Bugscope TeamCompound eyes are really cool, they are made up of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of individual facets, called ommatidia, each one has a lens in it
- TeacherJess wants to know how many eyes it has
Bugscope Teamthe fruit fly has two compound eyes that have hundreds of individual lenses, and it also has, as Alex said, simple eyes, which are called ocelli. There are three ocelli on the back of the head. We can just see one of them, as a little dome-like bump.
- Bugscope Teamsome insects also have simple eyes (single lens eyes) in addition to compound eyes, or in replace of, and some bugs don't have any eyes at all, like some ants
- GuestWhere are the antenna on this insect?
Bugscope Teamfly antennae are different then other insects'. They have 2 parts to their antennae (found between their eyes). They have a pad and a branching part.
- Teacherhow can they not have any eyes and fly or walk?
Bugscope Teambecause some ants can smell so good, they don't need eyes to know where they are going. and the ants smell with those hair like things, they are called setae (pronounced see-tee)
- 11:50 am
- Bugscope TeamSee the bump on the back of the head? That is one of the simple eyes, or ocelli.
- Bugscope Team(it's near the center of the image)
- Bugscope TeamAnts use their antennae much more, generally, than they use their eyes. Most of the chemical signals they get from the environment are collected by the antennae.
- Teacherwe see it
- Bugscope Teamnow we are centered on the antenna, which has the furry base and the branched part as well
- Bugscope Teamthe antenna is kind of compact
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the ommatidia -- the individual facets of the compound eye -- much better now
- Bugscope Teamand check out the setae (hairs) in between the ommatidia, those hairs are thought to help it fly by sensing wind speed and direction
- Bugscope Teamand we just moved the microscope controls so you can see the ommatidia better now
- Teacherwhat are they
- Bugscope Teamplease feel free, Ms. Hillen, to drive the microscope yourself. Also, if you like you may choose a preset at any time.
- Bugscope TeamAn 'ommatidium' is what a single one of those lenses is called.
- Bugscope Teamfor example: when you swap at a small fly, a slight change in wind/pressure will advance in front of you hand, and those setae will feel the air move, and then tell the fly brain to get out, quick! and then it fly's away and annoys you another day...
- 11:55 am
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that there are hundreds of ommatidia
- Teacherwhat does the ommatidia do
Bugscope Teamthey are thought to each get in image and then send them to the brain to get assembled into an image
- Bugscope Teamand that's why a fly swatter works so well, a swatter has holes in it, so it doesn't move as much air as it's swatting the fly, so the fly can't tell anything is coming, and then: SQUISH. RIP fly
- Bugscope Teamif you had compound eyes you would be better able to gauge motion -- you would be able to respond more quickly to someone trying to swat you
- Bugscope Teameach ommatidia has a lens in it
- Bugscope Teamand also --- if you had compound eyes, note that they curve around the head in many insects. that makes the insect have better peripheral vision than we do.
- Bugscope TeamCompound eyes also allow for a range of vision (sometimes nearly 360 degrees) that's impossible to achieve with two regular eyes
- Bugscope Teamthis is a moth scale
- Bugscope Teamnow we are imaging a single scale from a moth, and now more scales, up close
- Bugscope Teammoth's have these scales, which are lightweight
- Bugscope Teamwhen you feel the wing of a butterfly or moth, and it feels silky, you are feeling these tiny feather-like, shingle-like scales
- Bugscope TeamSome new research also suggests that compound eyes simplify the identification of motion, allowing them do complicated visual processing with a very tiny brain
- Teacherwhy do moths have scales?
Bugscope TeamAs alex said below, the scales can help them escape if they hit a sticky spider web. The scales will be shed, releasing them
- Bugscope Teamthe scales feel like powder
- 12:00 pm
- Teacherwhat makes moths so water repilant?
Bugscope Teammany insects are water repellent to some extent. they have a kind of waxy surface on the exoskeleton that does not allow water to stick
Bugscope TeamI just looked up a research paper saying that moth wings are hydrophobic (water repelling) due to a complex interaction between the shapes, structures, and materials the wing is made out of. The hydrophobicity keeps them from getting stuck to things by capillary action and gives them a self-cleaning property that researchers are interested in trying to copy for man-made materials
- Bugscope Teammoths, butterflies, silverfish, mosquitoes, and some weevils and beetles have scales
- Teacherhow many times can a moth mate in its life time? asked kyle
Bugscope TeamI think most moths will mate only one time during their life, which is usually no more than a few months. We will check to ensure that is correct.
- Bugscope Teammost moths are pests. They eat plants and clothing as caterpillars
- Bugscope TeamScot is right, they only mate once and then they die
- 12:06 pm
- Teacherok. ~kyle
- Bugscope Teammoth's are closely related to butterflies, and they have a very large array of species, between 150,000 and 250,000!
- Bugscope Teamthere are thousands of moth species yet to be named and described
- Bugscope Teamtell Kyle we have found so far that often the female mates one time, but the male may mate more than once. There are so many species of moths that it is likely there are some, for example in the Tropics, that mate and lay eggs more than once.
- Teacherare moths drawn to light because they think it's a mating source? ~kyle
Bugscope Teamno, moths respond to pheromones, generally, when they mate. pheromones are chemicals in the air, like perfume in many ways
- TeacherDid someone grow this salt crystal?
Bugscope Teamthe salt crystal is from a packet of salt we got at a Wendy's restaurant. we think, but we do not know for sure, that the salt has a tiny bit of anti-clumping compound added to it. so the salt (sodium chloride) still forms cubic crystals, but they have this cool incised pattern because of the anticlumping agent
- Bugscope Teammoths orient themselves with respect to the moon, for example, and when they see a light they get very confused.
- Bugscope TeamI'm not sure about moths, but some insects are drawn to light because they're actually looking for water -- their brains are programmed to think that bright lights must be reflections off the surface of a body of water
- Bugscope Teamit isn't completely understood why moth's are attracted to light. however, moths are nocturnal, and it is believed they might use the moon to help them fly strait, it is a technique called transverse orientation
- 12:12 pm
- Bugscope Teamtransverse orientation is the process of maintaining a constant angular relationship to a bright celestial light, such as the Moon, they can fly in a straight line. (from wikipedia)
- TeacherAny idea what the agent is?
- Bugscope TeamI was thinking maybe a small amount of sodium sulfite.
- TeacherOOPS! We have an early release so my class is ending earlier today. Thank you for your time
- Bugscope Teamthanks for using bugscope!
- Bugscope TeamThank You! See you tomorrow!
- Bugscope Teamms. chillen, remember, all the chat and images are saved to your member page
- Bugscope Teamrxl stopped, session disabled, locked, nice session everyone
