Connected on 2011-12-05 09:30:00
from Hampden, Massachusetts, United States
- 9:09 am
- Bugscope Teamwe are making presets for this morning's session
- Bugscope TeamGood morning, Mrs V!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- GuestHi Scott!
- GuestThanks again for the awesome session on Friday!
- Bugscope TeamThat was fun.
- 9:15 am
- 9:20 am
- Bugscope TeamHi Mrs. V, Cate here
- StudentHi! We're both here and ready!
- Bugscope TeamGreat! We are finishing the presets for your session, so you are getting a preview.
- Bugscope Teammoth head
- 9:27 am
- Bugscope TeamLEX we are ready to roll.
- Bugscope TeamYou have control of the microscope.
- Student...quick bathroom run!!! :)
Bugscope Teamno problem
- Studentokay, we're here!
- Bugscope TeamYay! Alright, you can now drive, and you can select from any of the presets.
- StudentIs this the eye?
Bugscope Teamthis is the fruitfly's eye
- Bugscope Teamthe compound eye
- 9:32 am
- Bugscope Teamand the little spines that are normally sticking out of those interstices
- Bugscope Teamthose are the spikes
- Studentwhat are the spines?
Bugscope Teamthe spines are supposed to be mechanosensory
- Bugscope Teamthe problem with that explanation is that the antennae have a component that do the same thing
- Studentwow! We see on that appears to be sticking out.
Bugscope Teamif you drive around a bit on the eye there may be a better place in which they're still intact
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that the lower left portion of the eye has those bristles/spines/setae that are intact
- Bugscope Teamfruitflies are flies, of course -- Diptera -- so they have only two wingas
- Bugscope Teamum wings
- 9:37 am
- Bugscope Teamand that means they also have a haltere on each side that helps them balance their motion in flight
- Studentthis is amazing because fruit flies are so small to begin with.
Bugscope Teamyes it is tiny, just a few millimeters across
- Studentso, given how small the bug is, what is the size of each eye lens section and those spikes?
- Bugscope Teamif you take the mag up again we can use the scalebar at the lower left to measure them
- Bugscope Teamyou know you can also choose from among any of the other presets, from the lefthand side of the screen
- Studentthat was our next question. :)
- Bugscope Teamnow we can see that an individual ommatidium is about 10 micrometers (microns) in diameter
- Studentokay, that got a great stymied reaction!
- Bugscope Teamthe rod-shaped bacteria -- the bacilli -- are generally 2 microns long, so the eyes are about 5 bacteria, end-to-end, wide
- Bugscope Teama micrometer is a thousandth of a millimeter and a millionth of a meter
- 9:42 am
- Bugscope Teamwhen you go to the preset with the brochosomes on it, those are usually about 300 to 400 nanometers in diameter. so they're nanoscale objects
- Bugscope Teamthis is a super nice looking cricket
- Bugscope Teamyou can see its mouth now
- Bugscope TeamSometimes in movies and tv shows you will see colorful pictures of bacteria, insects, or a virus. Those were all taken by an electronic microscope most likely
- Bugscope Teaminsect mouths are very complicated
- Bugscope Teamyes as Cate noted, the images we are seeing are in black-and-white -- in grayscale, and when you see images from electron microscopes in the media they are often artificially colored.
- Bugscope Teamyes a lot of insects are a lot more hairy than we realize.
- Studentdon't realize how hairy they are in life
Bugscope Teamthe hairs serve a lot of purposes, especially because insects do not have skin -- instead they have an exoskeleton, which is like wearing armor
- Bugscope TeamCockroaches aren't too hairy though. They are very streamlined since they have been around for so long
- Studentwe just got very excited at all the presets!
- Bugscope Teamthe hairs, which we often call 'setae,' are sensory, or many of them are
- 9:47 am
- GuestHi Cate! Welcome back! We missed you in our session on Friday.
Bugscope TeamMrs V these are brochosomes, which we could not find good examples of on Friday.
Bugscope TeamYes I'm back as of today!
Bugscope TeamGuess who is really happy about that.
- Studentnow, what is a brochosome...they look like zometool balls (if you've seen zometool kits)
Bugscope TeamThey are nano particles that only leafhoppers make. They are thought to help their eggs from drying out. Sometimes we find them on other insects that have been associating with them
- GuestThe brochosomes are even cooler looking than I expected, Scott.
- Bugscope Teamthey are so small it is a little hard to get them perfectly focused.
- Bugscope Teamwe had a leafhopper in the 'scope Friday and could not find any good examples of those we just found on the cranefly's wing
- GuestWe are "debriefing" our Bugscope experience and so we will be lurking for a while.
Bugscope Teamplease let us know when you have questions
- StudentFor a 9 year old who loves bugs and microscopes this is an awesome experience!
Bugscope Teamwe feel the same way; we are so lucky to have this kind of equipment
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the ant's mandible, one of them
- 9:53 am
- Bugscope Teamit looks like it has tines, like a fork
- Bugscope Teamthe mandibles on insects, when they have them, open from side to side like a gate
- Bugscope Teamalmost every ant you see is a female
- Bugscope Teamwhen you see an ant with wings, that is a male
- Studentit looks like a series of claws
Bugscope Teamit really does
- Bugscope Teamthe females do the work in the ant world too
- Studentreally?? I thought worker ants, etc. were male.
Bugscope Teamnope. The females (workers) do all the work, and the males (drones) are kept at home for breeding
- GuestGianmarco would like to know if the brochosomes help leafhoppers escape spider webs?
Bugscope Teamlike scales? I really don't know. Maybe.
- Bugscope TeamThat is a good idea -- maybe the brochosomes are a bit slippery, like little ball bearings
- Bugscope Teamspeaking of females
- Studenthow on earth do determine gender in things like ants and flies?
- 9:58 am
- Bugscope Teamone of the fly entomologists we used to work with told us that often, not always, female fly compound eyes are far apart (like Uma Thurman's eyes), and those of males are often close together (like Mikhail Baryshnikov's eyes)
- GuestMy class wants me to say "Hi!" from them.
Bugscope TeamHello!
- Bugscope Teamusually, without opening them, you can tell by how big they are or even by the differences in features
- Studentokay, that's a cool factoid
- Bugscope Teamwith spiders if there is not a huge difference in size (often the female can be huge compared to a male), you can tell by the size of the pedipalps
- Guestkids would like to know if those are setae?
Bugscope Teamyes any type of hair you see on an insect are setae. Flies are full of them!
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the antennae to the right
- Bugscope TeamI read that some large wasps can have as many as 17,000 ommatidia per eye
- Studentdoes each one see it's own image, so that they see 17,000 of you?
Bugscope Teamin a way yes. They would be at different angles since they are round. Plus since they go around the head they can see almost 360 degrees
- 10:03 am
- Bugscope Teamif you had compound eyes like this, you would have very good peripheral vision -- you would not have to turn your head to see most of what is around you
- Bugscope Teampeople who study fruitfly brains have found that to be so in that particular species
- Bugscope TeamThis is the head of the cranefly.
- Guesthey scott this is spencer have a good day
Bugscope TeamYou too, Spencer!
- Studentit's all eyes!
Bugscope Teamthey resemble mosquitoes that way, and they also of course look like giant mosquitoes, but they do not bite like mosquitoes.
- Guesthi scott this is max. i just wanted to say thanks for working with us friday!
Bugscope TeamMax it was really fun, a nice way to finish out the week.
- 10:08 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is a whole bunch of palps with setae sticking out all over, hard to tell just what's going on
- GuestAre these the mouthparts?
Bugscope Teamyes they are!
- Bugscope Teamcraneflies, as adults, feed on nectar from flowers, and some do not eat at all
- GuestYes, kind of a mess. Good anticipation....I was just going to ask that.
- Studentwhat's their lifespan?
Bugscope Teamas adults they live for only around 10 days
- GuestAlways makes me mad when people kill these, even when they know they aren't mosquitoes. ALthough a lot of people seem to think they are.
- Bugscope Teamas larvae they may be predatory, and they are said to eat mosquito larvae sometimes, which means they must have an aquatic stage of life.
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the ants from my house
- Studentthe craneflies resemble mosquito hawks,don't they? Or are the variants ofthe same thing
- 10:14 am
- Studentwow, there really are a lot of parts to the mouth!
- Bugscope Teamthey are often, according to Wikipedia, called mosquito hawks, mosquito wolves, mosquito eaters ('skeeter eaters'), etc.
- Bugscope Teamyeah I have friends that think they are mosquitos as well. There are also those flies that look like wasps. If you look closely you can tell they aren't by the fact they have heads that look like a fly's (they have padded antennae an their eyes are shaped different)
- Bugscope Teammany of the setae we see are helpful in letting the ant know when it is touching something
- Bugscope Teamsome of those setae may be thermosensory -- sensing hot/cold; and some may be chemosensory -- sensing smell/taste
- Studentloving the vocabulary words!
- Bugscope Teamants perform most of their communication chemically, and they use the setae on their antennae, mainly, for chemorececption
- Bugscope Teamoops chemoreception
- 10:19 am
- Bugscope Teamif you take the smell of a dead ant and rub it onto a live ant, the garbage-carrying worker ants will carry that dead-smelling ant away even if it struggles
- Bugscope Teamthey are little spurs on the legs that they rake over their antennae to help keep them clean
- Studentokay, what's an antenna cleaner and where is it located?
Bugscope Teamthere are two of these, each on one of the forelimbs, and they are shaped like a comb that helps the ant clean its antennae. d'oh of course Cate beat me to it...
- GuestHi Lex. We are a 6th grade science class in Pittsburgh, PA. We had a session on Friday and loved it. We are doing our "debrief" today. Hope you don't mind if we lurk in your session.
- StudentMrs. V - don't mind at all - it's fun hearing other questions
- StudentThat's what we thought.
Bugscope Teamif you went to a slightly lower mag you might see better how it's curved to fix around the shaft of the antenna
- Bugscope Teamthe wasp has these as well, and it is not a surprise -- wasps, bees, and ants are related
- StudentI think we'll be studying ants more -- there's so much! we've witnessed massive wars on our driveway
- Bugscope Teammany insects have a huge variety of chemical defenses that are used, particularly, against ants
- Bugscope Teama week or so ago there was an article online about a spider that was found to have anti-ant chemicals in its web
- 10:24 am
- Bugscope Teamthe moth keeps its proboscis coiled up when it is not using it
- Bugscope Teameven scales, which we see plenty of now, are modified setae
- Bugscope Teamthey can shed some scales to get free from a spider web sometimes. It doesn't hurt them
- Bugscope Teambut they don't grow back
- Bugscope Teamscales can carry pigment and are responsible for the colors we see in moth and butterfly wings; the shape of the scales also can produce what are called structural colors, which reflect light in different colors
- Studentit's so amazing -- you see similarties to completely different creatures -- here we thought Owl
Bugscope Teamboth moths and owls have eyes that allow them to see well in the dark
- Bugscope Teamsee the palps?
- Bugscope Teamyou can also see that this beetle has sharp pointy mandibles. I am sorry I don't know what kind of beetle it is
- Studentclearly we are fascinated by the mouth bits. :0
- 10:29 am
- Bugscope Teamthis may be a rove beetle
- Bugscope Teamit has lots of setae to help filter its food, apparently
- Bugscope Teamthe tips of the pals have chemosensory setae in them, like tastebuds
- Bugscope Teampalps, that is
- Studentyou guys have definitely taken Lex's love of bug to entirely new level.
Bugscope Teamawesome
- Bugscope Teamthat is great!
- Studenthe's currently very sad that we can't have this equipment in our house. :)
Bugscope Teamhaha.
- Bugscope Teamthe SEM would take a whole room in the house, and it needs its own power, water, air, nitrogen, and air conditioning
- 10:35 am
- Studentyeah, that's bit big.
- Guesthi this is kayla. what is that?
Bugscope Teamthis is where it is broken
- Bugscope Teamthe antenna i think
- Studentyeah, we zoomed to the end of the antenna
- Bugscope Teamthe holes around it are where setae fell off
- Bugscope Teamyes I agree with Cate -- it's the broken tip of an antenna
- Bugscope Teamthis is how insects breathe
- Bugscope Teamlucky for us it is not super efficient
- StudentI was just going to ask.
- Bugscope Teamor they could be much larger
- Studentwow. where are they located?
- Bugscope Teamthey can open and close the spiracles at will
- Bugscope Teamusually there are two per body segment, and they are on the sides
- Student:( I hate to say it but we actually have to wrap up...we'd stay on all day if we could.
- 10:40 am
- Bugscope Teamaw well sign up for another session next year and we will see you again!
- StudentWe so definitely will! Thank you so much you guys, this is an incredible opportunity!
- StudentWe'll get a link to the archived session, right?
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2011-104
- Bugscope Teamthat will bring you to your member page with transcipt and images
- Bugscope Teamtranscript*
- StudentThank you again -- this is a great program!
- Bugscope TeamThank you!
- Bugscope Teamthanks for joining us today! We always enjoy doing Bugscope. It is a fun program
- Bugscope TeamI had a lost person down here to talk with for a minute...
- GuestThanks for letting us join in today!
Bugscope TeamThank you, Mrs V!
- StudentSure! We had a blast -- see you again!
- GuestHave a happy Monday! Bye!
- Bugscope Teambe sure to sign up soon because we are now booking far in advance of the times you would want.
- Bugscope TeamBye!
