Connected on 2011-08-31 10:15:00
from Sioux, Iowa, United States
- 9:01 am
- Bugscope Teamjust opened the microscope software, finishing the sample prep, and soon we will be putting today's stub into the 'scope
- 9:31 am
- Bugscope Teamnow we're starting to make presets
- Bugscope TeamGood morning!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Teamthis is Scott
- Bugscope TeamCate is on the SEM right now, so she is SEM
- Bugscope Teamthis will give you a preview of the whole sample
- 9:37 am
- Bugscope TeamMrs Krebs be sure to let us know if you have any questions now.
- 9:42 am
- 9:47 am
- 9:55 am
- 10:04 am
- Bugscope Teamwe are ready to roll!
- Bugscope TeamMrs Krebs you have control and are welcome to drive around, try presets, etc.
- 10:09 am
- 10:14 am
- 10:30 am
- Bugscope TeamHello! Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Teamlet us know when you have questions!
- 10:35 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of the grasshopper you sent. it is so large we cannot go to a low enough magnification, with this microscope, to see the whole head
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that the compound eye, to the left of center, has tiny facets in it
- Bugscope Teamwhoever is controlling the microscope on your end can bring the magnification up, change contrast/brightness, and also 'drive' a bit by clicking on the image to center that clicked area
- Bugscope Teampresently Krebsclass Student has control of the microscope
- Bugscope Teamwe had stored a preset image, but the sample shifted a bit since we did that
- Bugscope Teamjust shows that these images are 'live'
- Bugscope Teamnow you can see a few of the thousands of ommatidia that make up one compound eye
- 10:41 am
- Bugscope Teamommatidia are usually hexagonal in shape. This allows for the ommatidia to better fit the curvature of the head
- Bugscope Teamthese are individual scales on the Monarch wing, now
- Bugscope TeamHere are some scale zoomed in close. You can see the structures that give the scale color. Like if you tilted something and it happened to change color, that is how these work
- Bugscope Teamthey are what make the wing feel so smooth when you touch it, and they come off easily. to us in the macro world they appear to be fine powder
- Bugscope Teamit is difficult, sometimes, to get good images of wing scales, especially, because they are not conductive and are hard to stabilize when the electron beam hits them
- Bugscope Teamwe're looking, right now, at the ridges that run along the long axis of the scale
- Bugscope Teamthe smaller latticework is where we will sometimes find pigment granules
- 10:46 am
- Bugscope Teamas Cate had mentioned, the shape and spacing of the structures we're looking at now refract light in different colors depending on the angle at which you see them
- Bugscope Teamthe wing scales produce both structural colors and colors derived from pigment
- Bugscope Teamthis is almost 17,000x
- Bugscope Teama light microscope maxes out at about 1500x
- Bugscope Teamfeel free to click on other presets, of course, or take the magnification down, etc.
- Bugscope Teamthis is the right eye of the cicada
- Bugscope Teamfacing us
- 10:51 am
- Bugscope Teamcicadas and grasshoppers are pretty big, but we made do with their body parts :)
- Bugscope Teamso only the head was kept of the cicada
- Bugscope Teamcicadas are in the order if insects called Hemiptera, and one of the features of hemipterans is their piercing/sucking mouthparts
- Bugscope Teamcicadas make noise by using tymbals on their abdomens
- GuestTest
- Bugscope Teamwhat is centered in the image right now is called the 'pulvillus'
- Bugscope TeamHi Student 2!
- Bugscope TeamThat worked!
- Bugscope Teamat close range they can be as loud as 120 dB, which is near the pain threshold of the human ear.
- GuestHi!
- Bugscope Teamthe pulvillus has lots of tiny hairs on it called 'tenent setae.'
- 10:56 am
- Bugscope Teamwe can see some of those setae now; they are what allows the fly to climb walls and glass and walk on the ceiling
- Bugscope Teamyou can also see the actual claws now
- Bugscope Teamthey open and close to grasp things
- Bugscope Teambe sure to ask us questions if you'd like
- Bugscope Teamyou've been doing a great job driving
- Bugscope Teamthese are itty bitty claws
- Studenthow long are the claws?
Bugscope Teamwe can see by comparing their length with the scalebar that they are about 200 microns (micrometers) long -- about a fifth of a millimeter
- Bugscope Teama millimeter is a thousandth of a meter, and a micron, or micrometer, is a thousandth of a millimeter -- or a millionth of a meter
- Bugscope Teamnow we're looking at the underside of the head of the black beetle, and we see its mouthparts
- GuestWhere are the eyes at?
Bugscope Teamthe eyes are at the very sides of the head
- Bugscope Teamwe can't see them right now
- 11:01 am
- Bugscope Teambut if you went left or right on the screen you should be able to see some eyes
- Bugscope TeamI just saw your email question about the inconsistencies in the scales -- yes those could represent damage to the wing. Moths, butterflies, mosquitoes, silverfish, and few other insects have scales, which are very useful if the insect gets caught in a spiderweb, for example: it can shed some scales and slip out
- Studenthow big is the mouth?
Bugscope Teamthe mouth opening is pretty small, and it is hard to actually give you a number
- Bugscope Teamit doesn't hurt to lose scales. They are kind of like a defense mechanism
- GuestHow long can the tongue get once it is unrolled?
Bugscope Teamit can easily be a centimeter long
- 11:07 am
- Bugscope Teamsometimes a butterfly or moth will have to reach far into a flower to get to the nectar
- Bugscope Teambecause we are using electrons to image these specimens, we see only in grayscale, in levels of black and white
- GuestWhat is the hairlike stubstance near the mouth?
Bugscope Teamthose are more scales. They just look a little differently
- Bugscope Teamnow we can see that there are thousands of facets (ommatidia) on each compound eye
- Bugscope Teambecause the eyes of butterflies and moths often charge up with electrons, we cannot get a clear image of this eye, presently
- 11:13 am
- Bugscope Teamwe are beaming electrons at the sample, in a vacuum chamber, and the images we see come from the electrons (called secondary electrons) that bounce out of the surface of the sample
- Bugscope Teamwhat's cool about the eye, which we can't see right now, is there are little cones all over each ommatidia
- Bugscope Teambeetle claws!
- Bugscope Teamit is unlikely that this beetle can climb well, very unlikely that it can cling to your ceiling like a fly
- TeacherWhy can't it climb well?
Bugscope Teamsome insects have little pads of hair, called a pulvillus, which located right next to the claw. Here, the beetle doesn't have any. The pads of hair are full of special hairs called tenent setae, which allow the insect to climb vertical surfaces. They act like suction cups or velcro. Since there is no pulvillus here, then he/she can't climb very well
- 11:19 am
- TeacherWe thought it was really cool that the compound eye parts are each the width of a human hair.
Bugscope Teamyeah isn't that cool! they are so small!
- Bugscope Teamladybugs have those pads Cate mentioned a little further up on the leg/arm, and there may be more than one pad (pulvillus) per limb
- Studenthow wide are the claws
Bugscope Teamit looks like they are one third to one fourth of a millimeter across when they are opened. that is 250 to 300-some micrometers across\
- Bugscope Teamthis is the big eeeeuw!
- 11:24 am
- Bugscope Teamthe mouthparts of the housefly
- Bugscope Teamsponging mouthparts
- Bugscope Teamthey are a bit dry, of course, not as slimy as they are when the fly is alive
- Bugscope Teamsome flies have these sponging mouthparts; they spit up on their food to dissolve it and then sponge up the results
- Bugscope Teamhorseflies, however, have slashing/cutting mouthparts
- Bugscope Teamkind of like a muscular sponge, here, with sensory setae/spines
- Studentis the hair like substance setae
Bugscope Teamnot these no. These are more for helping the insect to feel what is around it. They can't feel things the same way we do
- 11:30 am
- Bugscope Teamsome of the setae have a chemosensory function -- the fly can use them to taste its food
- Guestare the tiny ones the same thing
Bugscope Teamit is hard to tell; someone has likely studied that, but we are not sure. we often see structures we cannot identify
- Bugscope Teamthe very tiny ones may help slimy fluid stick to the surface of the sponging mouthparts by providing more surface area -- more roughness
- Bugscope Teamwhen setae have little sockets like the larger ones we see now, they are generally attached to nerves beneath the cuticle, which is what the exoskeleton is called
- Bugscope Teamthe microsetae, however, certainly do not connect to nerves
- 11:35 am
- Bugscope Teamhere we can see how 'weathered' the surface of the brown beetle's leg is
- Bugscope Teamand this is a clump of pollen -- you can see the tiny spikes
- Guestis that pollen
Bugscope Teamyes it is!
Bugscope Teamthis is a clump of pollen grains
- TeacherOK, now we really have to go! Thank you so much for this session. We will send you a link to our blog post!
- Bugscope TeamCool! Thank You!
- Bugscope Teamthanks and we are glad you could do bugscope with us today!
- Bugscope TeamGreat to get to connect with you today!
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-081
- Bugscope Teambelow is your member page
- TeacherTHANKS, Everyone!
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-081
- 11:40 am
- TeacherThere it is! Great, and we will have access to the transcript here, right? We'll be able to go back and look more closely at what you shared.
- Bugscope Teamyes the chat and images are there
- Bugscope Teamover and out! Thank You!