Connected on 2011-09-07 13:00:00
from Kane, Illinois, United States
- 12:05 pm
- Bugscope Teamsetting up...
- Bugscope Teamsample is in the 'scope and pumping down
- 12:18 pm
- 12:24 pm
- 12:29 pm
- 12:34 pm
- Bugscope TeamHello!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- TeacherHello. Did you receive our cicada and japanese beetles in the mail?
- Bugscope Teamyes we did!
- Bugscope Teamthis is an earwig
- Bugscope Teamwe connect with you at 1, right?
- Bugscope Teamwe usually start early to set things up, and we were not quite finished
- TeacherYes, just setting up, thanks!
- Bugscope Teamso please give us a few more minutes to get all of the samples located
- Bugscope Teamwe included a few other insects so you have a lot to look at
- 12:39 pm
- 12:45 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is your cicada!
- Bugscope Teamhi Missy!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- Teacherhow do we view the cicada in the microscope? it appears to be rolling thru all bugs in photos
- Bugscope TeamAJ we are done and ready when you are.
- Teacherready, we would like to see the cicada, how do we do that?
- Bugscope Teamif you go to the lefthand screen you can click on any of the cicada presets
- Bugscope Teamthis right now is its right eye
- Bugscope Teamyou can change the mag, use click to center on the screen to drive around, etc.
- Bugscope Teamthis is live imaging -- you are controlling a $600,000 scanning electron microscope from your house
- 12:51 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is the part of the head that is like a suction pump; it holds the apparatus that allows the cicada (a 'true bug') to suck sap out of branches
- Bugscope Teaminsects are a lot hairier than they seem
- TeacherWow. It looks hairy!
Bugscope Teamthe tiny hairs we see are called 'setae,' and pronounced see-tee
- Bugscope Teamcicadas seem very smooth when you see them, but surprisingly aren't so much
- TeacherIs it true that cicadas have a beak?
Bugscope Teamha yes. They have a proboscis, which can be like a beak or trunk. They use it to drink liquids
- Bugscope Teamlike a straw
- Bugscope Teamit is one of the presets
- TeacherWhen Jeri-Ann touched a cicada, it made a sound like an alarm went off. What could this be?
Bugscope Teamit was an alarm, in a way, intended to frighten or surprise you into leaving it alone
- Bugscope Teamthey can make sounds of up to 120 dB which is near the threshold of pain for the human ear
- TeacherJeri-Ann thought she was imagining that alarm sound.
- 12:56 pm
- Bugscope Teamit is called a 'shriek' in one place I looked, and it is said that the males are the ones that do it
- Guestwhat do they use the hair for?
Bugscope Teamhair in insects is often used as part of the sensory system
- Bugscope Teambecause insects have an exoskeleton, it is like they are wearing a coat of armor all of the time; they don't have skin with nerve endings in it like we do
- Bugscope Teamthey can't feel things like we can through our sensitive skin. They have hairs that are attached to nerves beneath their exoskeleton that allows them to feel or sometimes they are more specialized than that. Some can sense different chemicals for tasting/smelling
- Teacherok, then his name is Screetch
Bugscope Teamha totally cool
- Teacherwhat do cicadas eat?
Bugscope Teamthey drink plant sap
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of Screetch's compound eyes
- Bugscope Teamthey use their beak to penetrate little branches to get to the sap
- Teacheris plant sap sweet like in flowers?
Bugscope Teamit is in some plants/trees
- Bugscope Teamthe compound eye has thousands of tiny facets called ommatidia
- TeacherDo cicadas see very well?
Bugscope Teamno not too well, and if they can than they are just too clumsy to utilize them well. They have big enough eyes to see, but they often crash into things
- 1:01 pm
- Teacherwhere do cicadas live?
Bugscope Teamthey spend most of their lives underground, as larvae; when they come up out of the ground they live in the trees and shrubs
- TeacherWow, Screetch and Crash!
Bugscope Teamkind of goes together, like Starsky and Hutch
- Guestwhen do cicadas mate?
Bugscope Teamnot long after they pop up out of the ground and shed their shell, becoming what we are used to seeing
- Teachermaybe we could include cicadas in our diet then!
Bugscope Teamgood protein
- Teacherdo cicadas have any enemies?
Bugscope Teamsmall animals like to eat them. They are high in protein
Bugscope Teamthere is also the cicada killer wasp. And apparently the cedar beetle which are parasites of cicada nymphs
- Teacherdo they die after they mate? what is their lifespan after becoming an adult?
Bugscope Teamthey live for around a month after they emerge. They spend most of that time mating.
- Bugscope Teamnot all cicadas are 13 or 17 year cicadas; others may live underground, as nymphs, for 2 to 5 years
- 1:06 pm
- Guestour dogs always dig them up
- Teacherhow do cicadas make their noise? Like a cricket?
Bugscope Teamthey have things called tymbals on the sides of the abdomen, and they flew their bodies to make the tymbals click -- loudly!
- TeacherWell, it is good protein!
- TeacherAre cicadas our friends or enemies in the garden & around the house?
Bugscope Teamgenerally they are not a problem, but they do break a lot of small tree branches when they inject their eggs into them
- TeacherDo crickets make their sound like cicadas do?
Bugscope TeamI don't think so. I think most crickets rub their legs against their bodies or other portions of their legs to make the noises we hear.
- TeacherDo all cicadas look the same or are there differnt kinds of cicadas?
Bugscope Teamthere are different kinds. I haven't seen any other kind in Illinois, but in Australia there is one that is all green like a grasshopper
- GuestWhat are the evolutionary benefits of being in the ground for 17 years and then emerging
Bugscope Teamone advantage is that they are not predictable to predators; if they only come out of the ground en masse 13 or 17 years apart, no predator can wait that long to eat them exclusively
- TeacherI guess they get to look forward to mating for a month when they get out!
Bugscope Teamha maybe so. they certainly make enough noise looking for mates
- 1:12 pm
- Guestdo they eat anything other than tree sap?
Bugscope Teamwhen they are nymphs, underground, they suck the xylem out of roots
- Bugscope Teamwe usually stick them on their backs because they are more interesting this way
- TeacherAre japanese beetles our friends or enemies in the garden? They seem to love to eat leaves
- TeacherYOu guys have been great! Can we look at the japanese beetle now?\
Bugscope Teamthese are a couple of the Japanese beetle's claws
- TeacherWhat do they use their claws for?
Bugscope Teamthey use them to grab onto things like food or for support
- TeacherThey are hairy, too! They seem so smooth
- TeacherHow long do japanese beetles live?
Bugscope Teamit's about a month to a month and a half
- Teacherthey do so much damage in that short time.
- Guestwhat is their diet?
Bugscope Teamthey like to eat the foliate and flowers of plants and trees
- 1:17 pm
- Bugscope TeamI've seen them pigging out and mating on a peach tree one summer
- Guestcool
- TeacherAre they from Japan?
Bugscope Teamyes they are native to Japan and were first seen in the US in 1916
- Bugscope TeamJapanese beetles are big pests -- much more than cicadas
- TeacherAre japanese beetles pests in Japan too?
Bugscope Teamnot so much. They seem to have more natural predators there
- TeacherDo japanese beetles have any enemies?
Bugscope Teamthere are wasps that prey on them, but not in great numbers; bacteria are also used on the grubs to give them a disease that will kill them.
- Bugscope Teamthere is a parasitic wasp that was brought over here from china to help control them. The wasps lay eggs in the beetle grubs
- Guestwhat are their predetors?
- Bugscope Teamthere are also tiny nematodes that will kill them as grubs, before they become beetles
- TeacherAre they hard to kill?
Bugscope Teami think they are mostly susceptible to pesticides (and the parasitic wasps) when they are grubs, which make it harder to kill them as adults
- 1:23 pm
- TeacherSo the become used to the poison when young?
Bugscope Teamit only seems to work on them when they are young. For some reason as adults they are immune
- TeacherWhat makes their shell so colorful, as opposed to other beetles?
Bugscope TeamI think the colors we see are likely, as often with insects, partly from pigment but also in part structural, as in insect wings
Bugscope Teamthe idea is there are many layers of the chitin (which is what the exoskeleton is made of) that create an interference with the light causing iridescence
- Bugscope Teamladybugs look pretty too, but not only are they destructive they are smelly
- TeacherThey look so pretty but they are so destructive
Bugscope Teamyes they do and yes they are.
- Bugscope Teamladybugs like to eat aphids, though, so we give them some slack, since aphids are destructive
- Bugscope Teamyes thanks Scot
- TeacherIt seems the more insects we bring in to control our destructive ones, more problems arise!
- TeacherDo they stay close to home all of their lives?
Bugscope Teamthey are said to be clumsy fliers, so they likely do not go far
- 1:28 pm
- Bugscope TeamI was reading that in Japan, they have natural predators, but I don't yet see what they are.
- Teacherthey are the Kudzo of the insect world!
Bugscope Teamthat's right!
- TeacherTheir 'skin' seems to have u shaped indentations on it up close. do you know what these are?
- TeacherMr. Magoo? Can they see well?
Bugscope TeamI don't think they see especially well, not like flies or wasps or moths
- Bugscope Teamfor*
- Bugscope Teamnot sure what the indentations are fot
- Guestlooks like they have cobwebs on them
Bugscope Teamthe stuff that looks like cobwebs is fungus that probably came along after the beetle died
- TeacherThat fungus makes sense!
- TeacherDo they have a sense of smell then?
Bugscope Teamlike most insects, they can smell very well. some of the tiny setae we see are chemosensors
- 1:33 pm
- TeacherCan you tell us what chromosensors are or do?
- Bugscope Teamactually, people use pheromones, which are chemical attractants, to try to control Japanese beetles
- Bugscope Teamchemosensors can 'taste' the air and detect very small amounts of chemical scents
- TeacherCool, we have lots of perfume in our house, we'll get right on it. The neighbors will thinks we're nuts!
- Bugscope Teamants, for example, communicate mostly through scent
- Bugscope Teamperfume is an artificial pheromone in the human world
- TeacherThank you all for all of your wonderful insight! Good luck this school year. We had a great experience!
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-027
- Guestthank you so much, very interesting
- Bugscope Teambelow is your member page, which stores your images and today's chat session
- GuestThis is a great program!
- Bugscope Teamthank you, Missy
- Bugscope Teamthanks for bugscoping with us today!
- Bugscope Teamand Crayfish!
- 1:39 pm
- Bugscope TeamMissy and Crayfish are you with today's school or did you log on from somewhere else? Can you tell us where you're from?
- Bugscope TeamHello JLH270!
- Bugscope Teamwe were going to shut down soon, but please let us know if someone wants to drive the 'scope for a few minutes
- Bugscope Team...
- 1:44 pm
- GuestI logged on through my home computer. I learned about your program through the internet. I'm from the Chicago area, Riverside. I sometimes teach in Chicago and also at a Montessorri school (Alcuin) in Oak Park, IL.
Bugscope TeamI just set you up to be able to drive, if you would like.
- Bugscope TeamI'm sorry I am getting a lot of interruptions from other people on other 'scopes
- Bugscope Teambut Crayfish you now have control of the 'scope
- Bugscope Teamwe allotted an hour for our school today, so we have a few minutes left.
- Bugscope Teamthese are tenent setae on the pulvillus -- the sticky pad -- on a fly's claw
- Bugscope Teamyou can change mag, select from among the other presets, and also use click to center to drive
- Bugscope Teamlike if you went to low mag and then clicked on the image the 'scope would center the sample where you clicked
- 1:50 pm
- Bugscope Teamsetae are used to sense touch, or wind; also to smell; also to sense hot/cold; also as scales, which are modified setae, in butterflies, for example; and here as sticky hairs
- Bugscope Teamokay... we are shutting down for today --- Thank You for connecting.
- GuestThanks, much. I'll let you go now, but I would like to at some point send in some insects found at the Wolf Road Prairie found on milkweed. They are very interesting and colorful and also mating.
- Bugscope Teamthat sounds great!
- Bugscope Teamyeah totally cool
