Connected on 2011-05-16 09:00:00
from Grand Turk, Turks Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands
- 8:48 am
- Bugscope Teamhello fran. welcome to bugscope!
- Teacherhi CATE thankyou
- TeacherI logged in early, the students will soon be here
- Bugscope Teamlet me know if you have any questions. You should have control of the microscope if you want to drive around
- Teacherok, I would love if you assist with the driving and the descriptions
- Teacherwould really appreciate it
- Bugscope Teamyes I will do my best for you
- Bugscope Teamjust me today. Scott is away in Italy on vacation
- Teacherok thanks
- 9:03 am
- Teacherhi goodmorning again...we are all here
- Bugscope Teamhi everyone!
- Teacherthey said hi back
- Bugscope Teamso right now this is a big wasp we found in the building stairwell. It is not the cleanest, but it's still fun to look at
- Bugscope Teamunfortunately its stinger is not showing
- Bugscope Teammost of the wasps, bees, and ants you see are females. They do the work inside and outside the hive. The males, or drones, tend to just be used for mating only
- Bugscope Teamyou can see this wasp has 2 very big compound eyes, allowing her to see almost all around her at once.
- Bugscope Teamand there's a claw near the bottom of the image
- Bugscope Teamthe background the wasp is sitting on is double stick carbon tape (it often looks like it has little bubbles in it) and the smoother background part is silver paint we use to help hold down the insects and make them more grounded for the electrons that are hitting it
- 9:09 am
- Teacherare wasps similiar to bees, if they use their stinger...if they would die?
Bugscope Teamno, wasps can sting multiple times, but the venom they inject each time is a smaller amount then a bee's venom when they sting
Bugscope Teamand only the honeybee can only sting once. Bumblebees are free to sting multiple times, but they tend to leave you alone
- Bugscope Teamthe part of their venom that is deadly is a histamine component. Some people are highly allergic to it. Kind of like how benadryl is an antihistamine
- Teacherhow many babies can wasps have?
Bugscope Teamthat depends on the type of wasp. A parasitic wasp lays their eggs in other insects, so they lay only a few in a host as a time, otherwise the larvae tend to eat eachother. The common wasp, like a yellowjacket, will lay around 1500 eggs
Bugscope Teamand paper wasps lay around several hundred in their lifetime
- Bugscope Teamin the microscope we also have a small moth, a caterpillar, salt and sugar crystals, an ambush bug, a spider, a ladybug, a backswimmer, a fruit fly, and a caddisfly larvae. oh and a mosquito
- 9:14 am
- Bugscope Teamall the images you see are coming live from the microscope, and all the insects are dead.
- Bugscope TeamI'm just zooming in on the antenna right now.
- Bugscope Teamit's a little dirty, probably from the stairwell
- Bugscope Teambut you can see the antenna is very hairy and has those long wormy parts on it
- Bugscope Teamthe hairs help the wasp feel when the antenna touches or bumps into something. They don't have sensitive skin like we do, so the hairs help them feel
- Bugscope Teamthe long parts are called placoid sensilla, and they are responsible for reading the signals coming from other wasps or insects. Like how wasps can tell other wasps in the hive that there's a predator, maybe you, and to come out and help her sting
- 9:20 am
- Bugscope TeamThe moth eye is next.
- Bugscope TeamSo here you can see the individual components of the moth compound eye
- Bugscope Teamand there are even some hairs sticking out between some of the facets
- TeacherWhat makes the wasp a social insect?
Bugscope Teamwasps, bees, and ants are social. They live in communities often. Though there are a few exceptions like with solitary bees and wasps. But they have a very good working community where everyone has a job and they work well together. Most other insects don't often live in communities like hives or nests.
Bugscope Teammost insects also don't take care of their young like the wasps, bees, and ants- which are all part of the order hymenoptera
- Bugscope Teamthey work as a family under the queen, but if the queen dies and there is no other queen ready, then they tend to fall apart and die
- 9:26 am
- Bugscope Teamvery good question. they are fun to study and learn about in my opinion
- 9:31 am
- Teacherhow often do they produce queens?
Bugscope TeamI'm not sure how it works for wasps and ants, but the queen bee larva is fed special royal jelly. They only seem to lay the special queen eggs when it seems favorable. I'm not sure how often. I will keep looking
Bugscope Teamany egg can become the queen in case of emergency like if a queen suddenly dies the workers will flood several cells, where a larva has just emerged, with royal jelly in hopes that a new queen will come out quickly enough
- Bugscope TeamIn the case of wasps, any female can become a queen. They just have to mate with a drone. So it is slightly different. If it chooses to become a queen it usually flies off and makes her own colony
- Teacherwhat is the hair on the moth eye used for ?
Bugscope Teamthey are used for helping the moth feel when things get too close to it's eye, similar to our eyelashes, and also they may help in feeling the air currents shift so it can fly optimally
- Bugscope Teamyou will also see there are scratches in the eye, which could happen before or after death, and they don't really effect the moth too much because it has so many facets to the compound eye
- Bugscope Teamhmm i dont know why it's getting white, let me move
- Bugscope Teamwell here you can see me zooming out to the head
- 9:36 am
- Bugscope Teamthe eyes curve around the entire head, giving the moth an almost 360 degree view
- Bugscope Teamsorry about the image
- Bugscope Teamlet's see if this area will be ok
- Bugscope Teamok I will be right back. I'm going to look at the scope. give me a minute
- Bugscope Teamok this is cate at the microscope
- Bugscope Teamit's a little dark, but this is inside the chamber where the insects are
- Bugscope Teamyou can see some of the insects. the big one is the wasp
- 9:41 am
- Bugscope Teamwe are using electrons to image so the image is in black and white because we are gathering the signal from them and not lightwaves
- Bugscope Teamright now we are on a caterpillar head
- Bugscope Teamit has bumps on the sides of the head-- those are the simple eyes. Larva of insects tend to have simple eyes and not compound eyes. In the case of the caterpillar it has 5 on each side
- Bugscope TeamThey don't see very well out of simple eyes.
- Bugscope Teamparasitic wasps tend to use caterpillars as hosts for their eggs. People that grow things are happy for this because it helps keep the caterpillar population down
- TeacherWhy do moth go around light?
Bugscope Teamthey use the light to help them navigate usually. When there is a light that is not the moon (since they are usually nocturnal) it throws them off
Bugscope Teamalso artificial lights seem brighter than the moon
- 9:47 am
- Teacherwhat is their life span?
Bugscope Teamthey live for around a year usually, but the adults don't tend to live very long themselves.
Bugscope Teammonarch butterflies can migrate so they live around a year as adults
Bugscope Teamadult moths tend to live for only up to a few weeks sadly
Bugscope Teamthere are some moths that can overwinter somewhere as adults, so they can live several months
- 9:52 am
- Bugscope Teamhere are some monarch butterfly scales from a section of wing I put on
- Bugscope Teamthe scales are the same as the powder that may come off on your fingers when handling them
- Bugscope Teamthe scales can be used as a defense mechanism to help them get out of spider webs if they are lucky. They can try to shake a few loose and fly away
- Bugscope Teamwe dont have an ant. The wasp is as close as we get. I'm sorry. If you want to go back to the wasp I'd be happy to drive back there
- 9:57 am
- Teacherdo you have cnetipede or a spider?
Bugscope Teamyes we do. we have a spider
- Bugscope Teamhere are the fangs
- Teachercan we see the spider please
- Bugscope Teamnow sometimes when an insect or spider dies, they can throw up. That is a little of what we are seeing here. There is some goopy stuff around the fangs hiding one of the fangs entirely
- Bugscope Teamspiders are very hairy. They dont have good eyesight but the hairs help make up for that. They help them feel sensations like touch and also the vibrations, like from a web
- Bugscope TeamI believe this spider is a wolf spider
- Bugscope Teamoh and we are seeing the spider's ventral side (the underside)
- 10:05 am
- Teacherare all spiders usually poisonous?/
Bugscope Teamyes most are venomous. There are only a couple in the US you have to watch out for like the brown recluse and the black widow
Bugscope Teamyoung children are mroe susceptible to them. The venom is used to liquify their prey when the prey are insects so that the spider can drink it.
- TeacherThnakyou and it was great, we enjoyed today's session
Bugscope Teamthank you all for joining today to use bugscope
- Bugscope Teamit is always a pleasure to have you guys
- TeacherThanks for having us again and we look forward to work with you
- Bugscope Teamas usual you can go to your member page to see chat and images from today https://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-025
