Connected on 2010-10-25 09:00:00
from Cockburn Town, Turks Islands, TC
- 7:35 am
- Bugscope Teamventing the 'scope
- Bugscope Teamand pumping down
- 7:54 am
- 7:59 am
- Bugscope Teambe right back...
- 8:11 am
- Bugscope TeamGood morning, Fran!
- Bugscope Teamthis is Scott, on three computers right now
- Bugscope TeamGood morning, sp!
- TeacherHi morning
- Teachergood morning chaos
- Bugscope Teamgood morning!
- Bugscope TeamI am making the presets for today's session, running around the sample
- 8:16 am
- TeacherWhat time is scheduled for my school again?
Bugscope Teamit's in 45 minutes, 9 a.m. our time
- Teacherok
- Teacherwhich will be 10am our time
- Teacherwe will viewing the ant, house fly and ?
- Bugscope Teamshould be ready before that if you want to drive, but I have maybe 20 more minutes of presets to do
- Teacherthats ok
- Bugscope TeamI saw a house fly earlier but am not sure if Cate was able to find a good ant.
- Teacher10am is fine
- Teachergive the students time to prepare themselvves
- Teacherwill it be possible to help me drive as well
- Bugscope Teamcentipede, ladybug, honeybee, housefly, spider, wasp, rolypoly, beetle, cockroach, and some things I didn't recognize
- Teacherok...lol
- Teacherand its only one hour?
Bugscope Teamwe have time to run over if you want to
- 8:22 am
- Teacherok
- Teacherthat would be good...thanks
- Teacherwill other schools be joining us too
Bugscope Teamthis time is reserved for you. Sometimes we do get guests that come on
- Teacherkk
- TeacherI will be on until its time
- 8:27 am
- Teacherwhich part is that?
- Teacherscary?
- Bugscope Teamoh that is one of the honeybee antennae
- Bugscope Teamits tip was broken off and had a boatload of fungus growing in it
- Teacherwow!!
- Teacherduring the session
- TeacherI will be asking the names of some of these parts
- Bugscope Teamhey no problem
- 8:33 am
- 8:40 am
- Teacherdo you have any butterfly?
- Bugscope Teamno sorry not today; usually we'd just have the body and a piece of a wing, since they're so large
- Bugscope Teamthe stub is 1 3/4" in diameter, so we squeeze stuff on
- Teacherwill it be ok to see the body of the butterfly and the wing
- Teacherok then
- 8:46 am
- Teacherwe will look at the housefly first
- 8:51 am
- Teacherwe are ready.....and the students say good morning
- Bugscope Teamgood morning!
- Teacherwhich part is this?
- Bugscope Teamthis now is the ant stinger
- 8:56 am
- Bugscope Teamthe ant's abdomen is called a 'gaster,' and this is at the tip
- Bugscope Teamnot all ants have stingers
- Bugscope Teamthis ant is so tiny that it was hard to see when Cate put it on the stub
- Bugscope Teamclearly it had a full but rather rough life
- Bugscope Teamthe thing that looks like a raspberry is the compound eye, and to the right edge of where we're looking now is the base of the antenna, where it broke off
- Bugscope Teamthese are the mandibles -- the biting mouthparts
- Bugscope Teamand good morning everyone!
- Bugscope Teamwith insects that have mandibles, we see that they open from the sides, unlike our mouths, which open up and down
- Bugscope Teamthe jaws are curved, which makes them stronger, and they are fluted, ridged edges
- 9:02 am
- Bugscope Teamalmost all ants we see are females
- Bugscope Teamsometimes ants will bite first, and then spray formic acid into the wound
- Bugscope Teammale ants have wings, or a lot of them do -- there are so many ant species
- Bugscope Teamwe see lots and lots of hairs, which are called 'setae,' on insects and arthropods
- Teacherwhat the formic acid will do to you?
Bugscope Teamit will cause a burning feeling and could swell up the area
- Bugscope Teamhorned toads, such as you might find in Arizona and New Mexico, are said to have a formic acid requirement in their diet. they like to eat ants
- Bugscope Teamanyway, about the setae -- they are often sensory structures: the insect gets information about its environment from the setae.
- 9:08 am
- Bugscope Teamsome setae are touch- or wind-sensory, some are chemosensory and used to 'smell' the air or chemicals that they might touch; and some setae are thermosensory. they can sense hot and cold
- Teacherwhat they use their eyes for...if they use the setae to know their environment
Bugscope Teameyes are helpful as well, of course, and they are very important for many insects
- Bugscope Teamsome ants do not have any eyes at all, pointing to the importance of their antennae in getting vital information
- Teacherwhat they use the antennae is used for?
Bugscope Teama lot of ants signal to the rest with pheromones, and these signals are received with their antennae
- Bugscope Teammany flying insects have five eyes: two compound eyes and three simple eyes, called ocelli
- Bugscope TeamI just clicked to move us to the housefly head, but of course you have control of the microscope and can drive wherever you'd like
- Teacherthanks
- Bugscope Teammany of the flying insects see very well, and with compound eyes that may cover much of the head -- like a dragonfly's eyes -- they have very good peripheral vision
- Teacherhead
- 9:13 am
- Teacherhow many eyes does this fly has?
Bugscope Teamthis fly has 2 compound eyes and a set of three ocelli on the top of the head, which we can't see
- Teacherwhere are they on the body?
Bugscope Teamthe fly has compound eyes on either side of the head, and we can see them now
- Bugscope Teamthis is the underside of the head
- Bugscope Teamso we see the mouthparts now, and above them, the antennae
- Bugscope Teamthe antennae have a pad-like base and also a small branched portion. the branched portion is called the arista -- those antennae are called 'aristate antennae.'
- Bugscope Teamhouseflies have sponging mouthparts, and they eat by landing on things, putting the spongelike mouthparts on them, and using the saliva to dissolve things like sugar that they can then suck up
- Bugscope Teamdeerflies and horseflies are not like that -- they have slashing, cutting mouthparts they slice into your skin, making the blood come to the surface so they can drink it
- 9:19 am
- Bugscope Teamthe background, behind the fly's head, for example, is carbon doublestick tape
- Bugscope Teamwhen Cate makes a sample like today's, she takes a circular aluminum stub and puts carbon tape on it that is sticky on both sides; they she puts a tiny pool of silver paint down, and then she puts the insects on that.
- Teacheris this the cockroach head?
Bugscope Teamthis is the fly head
- Bugscope Teamwhen all of the insects/bugs are on the stub, she coats them with gold-palladium using a sputter coater
- Teacherwe would like to switch to the cockraoch head
- 9:24 am
- Teacherthanks
- Bugscope Teamwe had to drive by hand!
- Bugscope Teamyou can see one of the roach's palps is sticking up toward us
- Bugscope Teamthe palps are used -- usually there are four of them -- to help the insect taste and manipulate its food
- Bugscope Teampalps are kind of like accessory arms, for the mouth
- Bugscope Teamand like the antennae, in a way, they may have lots of chemosensory setae -- like tastebuds on your tongue
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the roach's compound eyes, streamlined into the head on either side, and you can see its antennae, one of which is broken off
- 9:30 am
- Bugscope Teamsee the facets of the compound eye? they're called ommatidia, and each functions like a tiny lens, getting its own image
- Bugscope Teamif you had compound eyes like this, it would be hard to buy sunglasses, but you would have very good peripheral vision
- Bugscope Teamyou would also have the ability to see motion much more quickly than we do, with our simple eyes
- Bugscope Teamthe thing that looks like a leaf is a scale from another insect
- Bugscope Teambutterflies, moths, silverfish, mosquitoes, and some beetles/weevils have scales
- Bugscope Teamit looks pretty sitting up
- Bugscope TeamI just moved us to the silverfish head. we can see only a few facets of its compound eye, about in the middle of where we're looking now
- 9:36 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is the silverfish head at a lower magnification; they always look kind of confused to me
- Teachercan we the see the probosis of one of the insects
Bugscope Teamwe can go to the honeybee and see its mouthparts
- Teacherit looks like a crab
- Teacherwhich part is that?
- Bugscope Teamthat is the bee's abdomen
- Bugscope Teamnow we see the bee's proboscis
- Bugscope Teamit has those scissor-like covers over the tongue, which is called a 'glossa.'
- Bugscope Teamit is difficult to see the glossa here
- Bugscope Teamhoneybees have 2 stomachs-- one for their normal food and one that is used to store the nectar for the honey
- Bugscope Teamthey also have two sets of wings, as do wasps
- 9:41 am
- Bugscope Teamthese hooks are called 'hamuli.'
- Teacherwhat do they do with the hooks?
Bugscope Teamthey use them to hook the fore- and hindwings together to make it like one pair of wings when they fly
- Bugscope Teamsee the wings, now?
- Teacherwhich part is that?
Bugscope Teamthis is the claw and it looks very fuzzy because it is covered in mold
- 9:46 am
- Bugscope Teamthese are the mold spores
- Teacherthey say it looks like grapes
- Teacherlol
- Bugscope Teamand a long setae (bug hair) going across the screne
- Bugscope Teamhaha yeah
- Bugscope Teamthis is kind of cool -- this is one of the roach's six claws
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that there is a butterfly scale stuck to it
- Bugscope Teamwhen the roach wants to open or close its claw, which it uses to grasp things, like a hand, there's a tendon called an unguitractor that flexes to make that happen
- 9:51 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is the top, exposed portion of that tendon
- Bugscope Teamthe pad in between the claws is called an arolium, and it is inflatable
- Bugscope Teamit is also sticky, and that is what the scale is stuck to
- Bugscope Teamthe scale has tiny droplets of liquid on it
- Bugscope Teamthis is the tip of one of the fangs of the centipede
- Bugscope Teamthese fangs have tiny pores in them, and it appears that the venom comes out of the tiny pores rather than a specific pore like spiders have
- TeacherI am scared of centipedes
Bugscope Teamyeah me too!
- 9:56 am
- Bugscope Teamwe just moved to a spider fang, and you can see where the pore is
- Bugscope Teamit looks kind of like the eye of a needle
- Bugscope Teamcentipedes are very creepy looking and can bite and be poisonous!
- Bugscope Teamspiders, and many predatory insects like assassin bugs, inject venom into their prey that dissolves their internal organs. they are apparently unaffected by the venom, because after it has done its job they suck the insides of their prey up like a milkshake
- Bugscope Teambut spiders clearly are affected by venom, and if another spider has bitten them, they can sense the venom entering one of their legs, for example. Spiders have the ability to let that leg just fall off before the venom enters the body, which is called the cephalothorax (like a head-chest)
- Bugscope Teamwhen a spiders jettisons one of its legs, that is called 'autotomy.' it's a good thing they have eight legs.
- 10:02 am
- Bugscope Teamhere we are looking at the housefly's compound eye, up close
- Bugscope Teamwe can see maybe 12 or 15 of the ommatidia -- the facets of the eye
- Bugscope Teamwe can see tiny salt crystals that are stuck to the eye
- Bugscope Teamthe cubic crystals could be sodium chloride, like table salt
- Bugscope Teamsugar crystals, for example, do not form cubes like that
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
- Teacherokay...they want say bye and thanks for eveything
Bugscope Teamthank you for using bugscope today! we hope you all had fun
- Bugscope TeamPlease come back next year and we will have something different to see.
- Bugscope TeamBye!
- Bugscope Teamyou can go to your member page at https://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2010-074 to look over your chat and images from today whenever you want
- Teacheryes we did.....We learnt alot....It was really fun to see the insects up close
- 10:07 am
- Bugscope Teamcool!
- Teachergreat
- Teacherthnks again....bye
- Bugscope Teamshutting down... good bye! and thank you again!
- Teacherthamks
