Connected on 2010-07-22 09:30:00
from Grafton, WI, US
- 8:47 am
- Bugscope Teampumping down, getting ready to set up!
- 8:55 am
- 9:02 am
- 9:07 am
- Bugscope Teamnow we are making presets for today's session at 9:30 our time
- 9:13 am
- Bugscope TeamGood Morning!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope TeamI am still setting up the presets but close to being able to turn the controls over to you.
- TeacherGood morning Scott. We will be ready at 9:30.
- Bugscope TeamSounds Great!
- 9:19 am
- 9:27 am
- TeacherGood morning. We have class until 10:00 and then we will take a ten minute break until the next class arrives at 10:10.
- Bugscope Teamgreat!
- Bugscope Teamyou have control of the microscope now
- TeacherWhat are we looking at? We think it's a grasshopper.
- Bugscope Teamthis is a spider, and we are looking at its fang, but it is hard to see very well
- Bugscope Teamthe thing that curves up from left to right at the bottom of the image is the fang
- 9:32 am
- Bugscope Teamspiders feed by injecting venom into their prey. the venom dissolves the internal organs of the prey, and the spider then sucks that all up like a milkshake
- TeacherSophey wants to know what kind of spider is this?
- Bugscope Teamnow we can see the chelicerae a little better
- Bugscope TeamI am sorry I don't know what kind it is
- Bugscope Teamit may be a wolf spider
- Bugscope Teamnow you can see the eyes, on the top of the head
- Bugscope Teamthere are usually eight eyes
- Bugscope Teamoften spiders do not see very well, despite having eight eyes
- Bugscope Teamthey rely more on their abilities to sense vibration
- Bugscope Teamsound is a vibration, for example
- Bugscope Teamthey use their tiny fine hairs to sense vibration
- TeacherWe want to know if his mouth is right below his eyes
Bugscope TeamJust below his eyes are the chelicerae, which are vertical muscular jaws, kind of like two buck teeth
- Bugscope Teamat the ends of the chelicerae are the fangs, which point inwards and are horizontal
- Bugscope Teamthe fangs are what the spider feeds through
- Bugscope Teamin the background we see little craters in the cabon tape that the spider is stuck to
- 9:37 am
- Bugscope Teamyou can choose from among the presets to the right of the chat box to have the microscope drive to another location on the stub
- Bugscope Teamthe fangs are hard to see because they have lots of setae -- lots of tiny hairs, covering them
- Bugscope Teamthis is the sheath that holds the piercing mouthparts that the female mosquito uses to bite you
- Bugscope Teammosquitoes, like butterflies and moths and silverfish, have little scales, almost like feathers are to a bird
- Bugscope Teamyou can see a couple of the scales to the bottom of where we are looking now
- Bugscope Teamthe part that sticks into your skin is inside this sheath, and it is very sharp, with little cutting edges like a steak knife
- Bugscope Teamand the antennae, and the base of the proboscis
- 9:43 am
- Bugscope Teamthe eyes go all around the head -- there are two main eyes, but they are compound eyes and have many facets
- Bugscope Teamthe thing that looks like a donut is the pedicel -- the base of one of the antennae
- TeacherHow long does the male mosquito live?
Bugscope Teamfrom days to weeks, probably; it depends on the kind of mosquito
- Bugscope Teamyou can tell males from females because the males have very ornate antennae -- very fancy. those of females are kind of boring-looking
- Bugscope Teamthere are some flies that live only for a few hours in their adult form
- TeacherGreg thinks this is a male mosquito. Is it?
- Bugscope Teamit looks very much like a male, but its antennae at not as fancy as those of a male
- Bugscope Teamthey are very similar
- Bugscope Teammale mosquitoes have frilly antennae, and I am sorry we don't have any to look at today
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the many legs of a rolypoly -- a pillbug
- 9:48 am
- Bugscope Teamthey are crustaceans, actually related to crabs and lobsters. they are not insects
- Bugscope Teaminsects have only six legs, a head, a thorax (the 'chest'), and an abdomen
- TeacherMandy wants to know what does a rolypoly eat
- Bugscope Teamthey eat things that are rotting, like dead plants and mold
- Bugscope Teamthey are called 'isopods' because all of their legs ('pod') are the same ('iso').
- Bugscope Teamlike an isosceles triangle, in which all of the sides are the same length
- Bugscope Teamthis is the face, so cute
- Bugscope Teamyou can see its antennae are folded, there at the top
- TeacherCarly wants to know where his eyes are
Bugscope Teamsometimes you can see them here, but they are on the other side of the head where we cannot catch a glimpse of them
- Bugscope Teaminsects and other arthropods have mouths that open sideways, compared to ours
- 9:53 am
- Bugscope Team\
- Bugscope TeamI'm sorry we cannot see the eyes. they look like flat raspberries, with maybe 20 facets
- Bugscope Teamthese are a few scales from the wing of a multicolored butterfly, I think a painted lady butterfly
- Bugscope Teamthe scales are what make the wings feel so silky when you touch them, and they come off like fine powder
- Bugscope Teamthey make up the color and pattern of the butterfly or moth, and they may function like feathers, in a way
- Bugscope Teambut entomologists think the main function of scales may be to help the butterfly escape from spider webs
- Bugscope Teamor I should say many entomologists seem to think that
- Bugscope Teamif you have scales on your wings and crashed into a spider web, perhaps the scales could stay stuck to the web but you could slip out
- TeacherSo do they leave some scales behind when they try to escape
Bugscope Teamyes they do!
- 9:58 am
- TeacherThank you. We will break for ten minutes.
- Bugscope Teamsometimes butterflies get stuck, though. spiders know that Monarch butterflies taste bad, and they will cut them out of the web.
- Bugscope TeamThank You and see you soon.
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that the wing scales charge up easily with electrons
- Bugscope Teamthat is what the glow is...
- 10:04 am
- Bugscope Teamfeel free to choose another preset
- 10:09 am
- TeacherSara asks: How do butterflies communicate
- Bugscope Teamsorry had to help someone
- Bugscope Teamone way butterflies communicate is -- like many insects -- through chemical scents
- 10:14 am
- Bugscope Teamthey use pheromones, kind of like perfume
- Bugscope Teamand they have very well developed chemoreceptors, so they can smell quite well -- much better than we can
- Bugscope Teamthey can also see better than we can
- TeacherDominic asks: how fast can butterflies fly
Bugscope Teamwell they are all a little different, but Monarch butterflies can fly hundreds and even thousands of miles. but it can take them a long time
- Bugscope Teamtheir eyes can see light in the ultraviolet wavelengths, and they can tell what flowers they would prefer that way, for example
- Bugscope Teamhere is a better answer for Dominic -- the fastest butterflies are said to go 12 miles per hour, whereas moths can fly about twice that fast
- Bugscope Teamthis is the mouth of the rolypoly
- 10:19 am
- Bugscope Teamnow we see tjhe antennae a ltitle better
- Bugscope Teamsometimes we can see the compound eyes, but not today
- Bugscope Teamwhen we mouth insects other arthropods like spiders and rolypolies on a stub, like today, we put them on their backs so the legs and mouthparts will be up
- Bugscope Teamthey actually have gills, not lungs, and they are crustaceans - they are not insects
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the legs
- Bugscope Teamthe legs are all the same shape, and their may be fourteen of them
- Bugscope Teamoops 'there' may be 14
- Bugscope Teamthis is kind of a mean looking and large ant
- TeacherDo all ants bite?
Bugscope TeamI think that they can all bite, but there can be a huge difference in size in the same colony, and a large difference in the size of the jaws
- Bugscope Teamyou can see its compound eyes, and its antennae, and its mouth. the jaws open like a gate, from side to side
- 10:25 am
- Bugscope Teamalmost all of the ants we see are females
- Bugscope Teamthe males have wings, and pretty much all they do is mate and die
- Bugscope Teamof course there are so many different types/species of ants that there are exceptions
- Bugscope Teamlike the butterflies, ants depend very much on their antennae, and on chemical communication
- Bugscope Teamthis is a fly, and you can see its compound eyes
- Bugscope Teamthe compound eyes are composed of many tiny facets called ommatidia
- Bugscope Teameach makes a tiny image, and the fly's brain makes sense of all of the images
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that there are thousands of ommatidia in one compound eye, at least in this type of fly
- Bugscope Teamif you had compound eyes it would be hard to get glasses, but you would be able to see changes in the environment around you very quickly, and you would have a very wide view of the world around you as well.
- 10:31 am
- TeacherThank you so much for sharing all you know with the classes.
Bugscope TeamThank You!
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2010-060/
- 12:03 pm
- TeacherKyler asks: How big can they grow
Bugscope Teamsome can be more than a centimeter long; in the Tropics, and for the species that live in the water, they can be much larger.
