Connected on 2011-06-10 10:00:00
from Greene, Missouri, United States
- 9:06 am
- Bugscope Teamsample is pumping down...
- Bugscope Teamalmost there
- Bugscope Teamthen we'll start to make presets for today's session with the Discovery Center of Springfield
- 9:13 am
- Bugscope Teamnow making presets...
- 9:19 am
- 9:24 am
- 9:30 am
- 9:35 am
- 9:42 am
- 9:47 am
- Bugscope Teamgood morning, Science77!
- Bugscope Teamwelcome to Bugscope!
- TeacherHello, good morning!
- Bugscope TeamI am finishing up the presets for your session.
- Teacherok, we are ready to go!
- Bugscope Teamyou should be able to start driving now
- Bugscope TeamI will be back in a sec
- Teacherok
- 9:53 am
- Bugscope Teamalright I am back
- Bugscope Teamplease let me know when you have questions, and/or if you have any trouble driving
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of a male mosquito
- Bugscope Teamand we are looking at individual facets -- ommatidia -- of the compound eye
- Bugscope Teamthe ommatidia are a little dirty, I'm sorry
- Bugscope Teamwhich holds the base of the antenna
- Bugscope Teamthere is a lot of juju on the surfaces of the ommatidia
- Bugscope Teamthey are a little more than 20 microns -- micrometers -- in diameter. about 10 bacilli bacteria in diameter
- Bugscope Teama micrometer is a one thousandth of a millimeter, or a millionth of a meter
- 9:59 am
- Teacherok! very cool!
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that the pollen grains moved a bit since we made the preset
- Bugscope TeamI clicked on the screen to center it
- Bugscope Teamthis is part of the ambush bug's 'retention plan'
- Bugscope Teamthe quite powerful forearms close on prey to hold it tight while the ambush bug pierces it with its proboscis
- Teacherok, one of my students asked how long it takes to prepare a sample for the SEM?
Bugscope Teambecause most of these insects are air-dried it is very simple to mount them on a stub with doublestick carbon and silver paint, then sputtercoat them with gold-palladium; maybe a half hour to make a whole stub
- 10:04 am
- Bugscope Teambecause the caddisfly larva lives underwater, it gets diatoms and other tiny aquatic flora/fauna attached to it
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the diatoms -- or at least the silica shell of one
- Bugscope Teamthe claw!
- Bugscope Teamsilverfish are covered with scales like moths, butterflies, and mosquitoes, as well as very few other insects
- 10:10 am
- Bugscope Teamif a butterfly or moth or silverfish happens into a spiderweb, it has a chance to escape by leaving the scales and slipping its body out
- Teacheranother question...How many insect specimens did you prepare today and how long did it take to prepare all of them?
- 10:15 am
- Bugscope Teambut that does not include critical point drying of some insects well in advance of the session. that can take about 40 minutes.
- Teacherok
- Bugscope Teamif we get insects in ethanol we can critical point dry them and get better preservation of soft parts like mosquito eyes
- Bugscope TeamI am sorry we have no female mosquitoes today. when you critical point dry them their mouthparts fly apart, and you can often see the stylets, of which there are four, very sharp.
- Teacherhow many compound eyes, or ommotidia does a mosquito or thrip have?
Bugscope Teamthey have a few hundred ommatidia, probably. a large wasp can have 5000 per compound eye, although I have never done the counting.
- 10:20 am
- Bugscope Teammany flying insects also have ocelli -- three simple eyes -- on the top of the head. you may be able to see them on one of the houseflies.
- Bugscope Teamlet me know if the 'scope is not driving correctly
- Bugscope Teamnow you can see at least one ocellus, to the top
- Bugscope Teamthe antennae are pretty much in the middle, with the pad portion -- I forget what it's called -- and the aristate, or branched, portion
- 10:25 am
- Bugscope Teamgenerally, female flies have their eyes fairly far apart, whereas those of the males are often close together
- Bugscope Teamcaddisflies, as larvae, are good indicators of water quality in a stream
- Bugscope Teamthe longer smooth rounded things are the gills
- Bugscope Teamoops don't see any now
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head
- Bugscope Teamthese guys are predators in the water
- Bugscope Teamso among these fine hairs/bristles/setae we find other aquatic organisms
- Bugscope Teamand dirt/debris
- Bugscope Teamthere are larger round things like sea squirts or more likely vorticella in some places
- 10:32 am
- Bugscope Teambe sure and go through any presets that might be interesting to you so they go into your database
- Teacheri did mail in some insects but put them on 2 day express. They should have made it there by now. But Scott did leave me a voice mail saying the person that deals with them may be on vacation. So i was wondering if you guys could use them for my next session in july?
Bugscope Teamyeah the insects were in my mailbox this morning; it has to do with the lackadaisical delivery on this end
- Bugscope Teamwe can use them in July, yes
- Bugscope Teamthese are very small ants that were invading my kitchen; I caught them a few at a time and froze them
- Bugscope Teamthen I put them in ethanol and Cate critical point dried them
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the mandibles that open and close like a gate
- Teacherok, great. yeah i wasn't sure if we had mailed them in time or not.
- Bugscope Teamand you can see the one compound eye quite clearly, plus the antennae
- Bugscope Teamhere you can count the ommatidia. some ant species do not bother to have eyes at all. but the antennae are very important
- Bugscope Teameven this 'simple' compound eye has about 50 ommatidia
- 10:39 am
- Teacherdo all insects with eyes have compounds eyes?
Bugscope TeamI am not sure -- it would be the adults, because earlier stages can have simple eyes, like caterpillars have stemmata
- Bugscope Teamhuh my chat window just wigged out
- Bugscope Teamgoing to another computer
- Teacheroh, ok
- Bugscope Teamyeah my reply got hung up and messed up that window
- Bugscope TeamI don't think all adult insects have compound eyes; I know that all larval insects do not.
- Bugscope Teamfor example, caterpillars have, often, five stemmata on each side.
- Bugscope Teamfive bump-like simple eyes on each side
- Teacherok.
- Bugscope Teamsilverfish often look confused, like they just woke up
- 10:44 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is the ambush bug -- a 'true bug'
- Bugscope Teamit was orangey-yellow
- Bugscope Teamwith a scanning electron microscope the images come in as signal; there is no color
- Bugscope Teamthat is of course ignoring that we coat the samples with gold-palladium, so they look silver
- Bugscope Teamhere you can see that the compound eye has thousands of ommatidia
- Bugscope Teamif you had compound eyes like this you would have very good peripheral vision, and you would have the ability to register movement or motion in your visual field very quickly. but it could be hard to get dates, and also difficult to buy sunglasses
- 10:49 am
- Bugscope Teamthe ambush bug sits on plants (note that it had pollen on it) and waits for insects to land. it then pounces on them, grasping it with those powerful spikey forelimbs. and it pierces them with its proboscis, sucking out all of the juice inside
- Bugscope Teamso now we are looking at the side of the front of the head, and in the background is the right eye
- Bugscope Teamladybug head, with compound eye
- Bugscope Teamthe bar across the front of the eye is the antenna shaft
- 10:54 am
- Bugscope Teamthe reason I made a preset of only the eye is because the rest of the body doesn't look so good; it's kind of beat up
- Bugscope Teamand even here we see that there is some kind of film or goo on part of the head
- Bugscope Teamit's probably hemolymph
- Bugscope Teamthis is a backswimmer; another aquatic insect
- Bugscope Teamit is also a true bug
- Teachercool. we recently visited a stream and collected water samples and looked for microrganisms and invertebrates under the microscopes.
- Bugscope Teamsweet
- Bugscope Teamso did you see some of these guys?
- Teacherwe found some water stryders and insect nymphs, but no backswimmers.
- 10:59 am
- Bugscope Teamthese guys do the backstroke
- TeacherAlright, well we've got to head back to class now. Thank you so much for this opportunity! we really enjoyed it! See you guys in July!
- Bugscope TeamThank You! See you soon!
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-035
- Bugscope Teamtoday's session below
- Bugscope Teambye!
