Connected on 2010-09-02 13:30:00
from Memphis, TN, US
- 1:21 pm
- Bugscope TeamWe are ready to roll!
- Bugscope Teamthis is a female mosquito, sans antennae
- 1:26 pm
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Teamhutch we gave you control, and the session is unlocked if you would like to drive around
- StudentThank you!!
- Bugscope Teamthe compound eye is caved in -- happens when the mosquito dies and it starts to dry out
- Bugscope Teamthis is the proboscis
- Bugscope Teaminside is the fascicle
- Bugscope Teamactually you can see part of the fascicle
- Bugscope Teamthis is the face, obviously -- the donut like things are the pedicels: the bases of the antennae
- Bugscope Teamthat is a spiracle
- Bugscope Teamthe hole is a spiracle
- Bugscope Teamin the thorax
- 1:31 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe wings and legs are attached to the thorax
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that most of the scales have come off of the head and the body
- Bugscope Teammosquitoes, butterflies, moths, skippers, silverfish, and some weevils plus a very few beetles have scales
- Bugscope Teamthis leg is covered with scales
- Bugscope Teamscales are kind of analogous to feathers
- StudentDo you know why the stinger is hairy?
Bugscope Teamthe part that bites -- that sucks your blood -- is inside the sheath you see coming out of the mouth
- 1:36 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe part that bites is called the fascicle, and the proboscis is a sheath covering it, but it is slit all along one side
- Bugscope Teamthe fascicle is often, as today, covered up. but it has at least 4 thin cutting blades, a siphon tube that collects blood and also delivers saliva, and another component I am not sure about
- Bugscope Teamthese are ommatidia -- some of the facets of the eye
- Bugscope Teamwhen the mosquito is alive the ommatidia are swollen and round
- Bugscope Teamonly the female mosquitoes suck blood
- Bugscope Teamthis is totally cool
- Bugscope Teamthat is a mite living on the exoskeleton -- the shell -- of the earwig
- StudentIs this bug you brought?
Bugscope Teamyes this one came from us
- Bugscope Teamthere are a lot of these mites living on this dirty earwig
- Bugscope TeamI think it came from my house
- Bugscope Teamthe little spikes are called 'setae.'
- StudentWhat is the hauli?
Bugscope Teamhamuli are hooks that wasps and bees have that they use to hook their fore- and hind-wings together with so that they seem like one wing when they fly
- Bugscope Teaminsects and other similar arthropods have exoskeletons, kind of like if you wore armor all of the tim
- 1:42 pm
- Bugscope Teamtime
- Bugscope Teambee face
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the jaws at the top of that inverted triangle
- Bugscope Teamthe inverted triangle is the covering of the glossa, which is the tongue
- Bugscope Teamthe bee has 'hairy' compound eyes
- Bugscope Teaminsects sense their environment using their antennae, and the little setae all over their bodies
- StudentDo you know what we're looking at?
Bugscope Teamthe bubbly stuff you see is the background made of sticky carbon tape that we stick the insects to
- Bugscope Teamthe setae can be chemoreceptors, which allow them to smell the air and detect pheromones or food smells, and mechanoreceptors, which sense touch, and thermoreceptors, which can sense hot/cold
- Bugscope Teamto the lower right is the edge of the honeybee
- 1:47 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe earwig is to the left, where we cannot see it now, and the mosquito is past that
- Bugscope Teamthis is really nice
- Bugscope Teamthis is how the bee keeps its antennae clean
- Bugscope Teama custom scraper for the antenna
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the six claws of this ant
- Bugscope Teamor six sets of claws...
- Bugscope Teambetween the claws is the arolium, which is puffed up in life
- Bugscope Teamlike an inflatable ball, it helps the ant hold onto crevices, for example
- Bugscope Teamhere's the little ant
- Bugscope Teamso lovely...
- Bugscope Teamone from our collection
- Bugscope Teamsee its jaws?
- 1:52 pm
- Bugscope Teamin insects the jaws go from side to side; they open like a gate
- Bugscope Teamunlike the way our mandibles work
- Bugscope Teamwhoa!
- Bugscope Teama serious stinger
- Bugscope Teamovipositors are the extended tubes through which insects may lay their eggs
- Bugscope Teamand stingers are modified ovipositors; sometimes they are both at the same time
- Bugscope Teamsome parasitic wasps sting their caterpillar prey and them inject eggs into their bodies
- Bugscope Teamand *then* inject eggs
- Bugscope Teamthis is a damselfly, kind of like a dragonfly
- 1:58 pm
- StudentAre the big round balls the eyes?
Bugscope Teamyes they are! they are quite big aren't they
- Bugscope Teamthe horizontal lines we see across the view of the underside of the damselfly's head are from the head charging up with electrons
- Bugscope Teamwe just saw a little bit of one of the wing scales from the moth, or butterfly
- Bugscope Teamthe wing scales are kind of like feathers, and they give the wings their color. they are also very useful in helping the insect avoid being caught in spiderwebs
- 2:03 pm
- Bugscope Teamnow we are looking at a very few of the thousands of facets of the compound eye of this moth
- StudentWhat is a moth cone?
Bugscope Teamhuman eyes are composed of rods and cones. Those are what we think to be in that image
- Bugscope Teamthis is what the inside of a compound eye looks like
- StudentWhat is the spinnerette?
Bugscope Teamthe spinneret (another spelling) is where the spider's silk comes from
- Bugscope Teamsilk = web
- Bugscope Teamspiders often recycle their webs by eating them
- Bugscope Teamooh
- Bugscope Teamthat's because the web is made of proteins
- Bugscope Teamyou can see more of those plumose setae, and beneath them you see one of the spider's claws
- StudentWhat is the plumose setae?
Bugscope Teamthose are special hairs that spiders have that are specialized in feeling vibrations like when a prey lands in their web
- 2:09 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe shape of the setae -- the plume-like shape -- ensures that they are able to detect vibration very efficiently
- StudentDo you know what this is?
- Bugscope Teamnow what you see is some of the venom as a drop at the base of the spider's fang
- Bugscope Teamall spiders inject venom into their prey using the fangs, one of which we see above.
- Bugscope Teamthe venom dissolves the insides of the prey, and the spiders suck all of that back up like a milkshake
- 2:14 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe fangs are curved inward and found at the ends of the chelicers, or chelicerae.
- Bugscope Teamthe tube we see to the right is the proboscis of the mosquito
- Bugscope Teamit is, as you noted earlier, covered with scales
- Bugscope Teambut inside, the parts that cut into your skin are smooth, and at their ends they are serrated like steak knives
- Bugscope Teamhere we are able to see a bit of the smooth fascicle the female mosquito uses to cut into your skin and suck your blood
- Bugscope Teamotherwise, with all of the scales, you know it would not make a good hypodermic syringe
- Bugscope Teamsee how the scales are similar to those of the moth?
- 2:20 pm
- StudentThey love this!
Bugscope Teamthat's great! We really enjoy doing this too
- Bugscope Teamas we had mentioned earlier, having scales can be an advantage when you fly into a spiderweb, because they can stick and you -- the rest of you -- might be able to slip away
- StudentThey love how the eye is popping out!
- Bugscope Teamthose little furry donut like things are called pedicels
- Bugscope Teamthey look like eyes, but they are actually the bases of the antennae
- Bugscope Teamthe antennae have fallen off
- Studentwow!
- Bugscope Teamall of the little wrinkled things behind them -- to the left, mostly -- are the eye facets
- Bugscope Teamif you had compound eyes it would be hard to get sunglasses, but you would have very good peripheral vision. people would not be able to sneak up on you very easily.
- StudentWhy are some of the slits open and some are c losed?
Bugscope Teamthese are wrinkles in what are supposed to be round ommatidia. When the insect dies, it deflates a little
- 2:25 pm
- Bugscope Teamalso, because there are so many individual lenses, and we see a few wrinkled ones now, you would be able to perceive motion very quickly
- StudentSo usually they are all open?
Bugscope Teamyes in a way they are always open because mosquitoes, and all other insects, do not have eyelids
- StudentThank you all for this session! The girls loved it! They all say thank you!
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
- Bugscope Teamthank you for using bugscope today!
- Bugscope Teamthis is really fun for us, as Cate said
