Connected on 2012-01-19 10:00:00
from Monroe, New York, United States
- 9:21 am
- Bugscope TeamHello Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope TeamDarwin!
- Bugscope Teamwe're making presets for your session
- Bugscope Teamcan you see this?
- 9:26 am
- TeacherYes we can
- Bugscope TeamCool. You are not on 'til 10 our time, correct?
- Bugscope Teamof course you are welcome to watch us set up, and if the class is here now we will hurry
- Bugscope Teamwe are GMT minus 6 hours
- TeacherRight - you are GMT? Class isn't here yet.
Bugscope Teamtotally cool
- Teacherok...we mis-filed the email and there was general confusion as to time
- 9:31 am
- Teacherand your location, in fact...sorry bad record keeping and to many events taking place at once
- Bugscope Teamwe're good - will you have a class at 11 your time, 10 our time?
- Bugscope Teamor an hour later?
- Bugscope Teamwe usually have an hour at the end in case someone wants to run longer or there is a messup in that direction
- 9:36 am
- TeacherYes
- Bugscope Teamsweet
- Bugscope Teamwe'll be ready with what we have -- we didn't have just what you asked for
- Bugscope Teamand you are welcome to hang out
- Bugscope Teamif you have a computer lab so that kids can log in themselves, that would be cool
- Bugscope Teamwe'll also give you back control as soon as we're done setting up
- 9:42 am
- Bugscope TeamDarwin we are done with presets and have given you control of the microscope. So you can drive around, check out the presets, etc.
- Bugscope TeamPlease let us know when you have questions. That's what we're here for.
- 9:47 am
- Teacherwe didn't send in our samples because they were collected this fall and we didn't manage to preserve them well enough to send them...we'll be happy to see whatever you show...they are young grade 5 students and it is a general environmental class
- TeacherAlso, we are not in a lab, but are in a room with a projector screen so everyone will be able to see equally.
- Bugscope Teamwe were able to get a sowbug and an aquatic fly larva for you
- Bugscope Teamno problem about the samples. in the future you can collect aquatic creatures into ethanol -- vodka will work -- and then send them that way.
- Teachergreat.....we have aquatic sowbugs and terrestrial ones in our area and have studied both
- Bugscope Teamterrestrial samples you can freeze to kill, like in the freezer for a week usually does it. then you can let them air dry on a countertop for another week before sending them loosely wrapped in Kleenex in a non crushable container.
- 9:53 am
- Bugscope Teamcaddisfly larvae like this often have diatoms on them
- Teacherstudents cannot believe that we are really in control of the microscope...can you assure them that we are?
- Bugscope Teamyes you are controlling an electron microscope that costs $600,000!
- Bugscope TeamAll the insects are inside a vacuum chamber being blasted with electrons to give us this image
- 9:58 am
- Bugscope Teamthe background you see is carbon tape that we use to stick the insects on. It often looks like bubbles or craters
- Bugscope Teamthe little finger projections here are gills
- TeacherWe frequently find this larva in our creek in the rock debris houses they create
- Teacher"bubble" that are to the left of the gills
- Teacherwe saw the gills, but students want to know about the small round
Bugscope Teamthose look like mold spores
- 10:04 am
- Bugscope Teamthere are little aquatic organisms kind of like vorticella that we see on caddisfly larvae sometimes
- Bugscope Teamnow you can see the mandibles
- Bugscope Teamcaddisfly larvae are predators
- Bugscope Teamas you likely know they are also indicators of water quality; if they're not around the water may not be clean enough for them to live in
- Bugscope TeamDarwin please be sure to check out the presets on the screen to the left, and select from them if you would like
- Teacherwhat is the function of the little hairs we see in the mouth?
- Bugscope TeamI just moved us to the leafhopper, for example, but you can select from any of the presets yourself
- Bugscope Teamsowbug!
- Bugscope Teamhere's the sowbug, also known as a pillbug or rolypoly
- 10:11 am
- TeacherWe find large numbers of these in our woods in old logs, in leaf litter,e tc
- Bugscope Teamthey like damp dark places
- Bugscope Teamthey are crustaceans and are said to have gills toward/near the terminal segments
- Bugscope Teamyou can see why they're called isopods
- TeacherYes they have equal feet we think there are 14 feet I am a student, Athena
- Bugscope Teamthat's right- 7 pairs of legs
- 10:17 am
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the head now, in the upper left
- Bugscope Teamnow the cricket head!
- Bugscope Teamit has some stuff all over its mouth and its antennae fell off.
- Bugscope Teamthe limblike things on the front of the head are palps -- accessory mouthparts
- Bugscope TeamSometimes insects vomit when they die and that could be what is around its mouth
- Bugscope Teamthe hole on the upper right is where the antenna fell off
- Bugscope Teamthe compound eye is to the right and down
- Bugscope Teamyou can see a scale from another insect going across the image diagonally
- 10:22 am
- Teacherwhat am I looking at
Bugscope Teamthis is the area from which one of the antennae broke off of the cricket's head
- Bugscope Teamthe thing with ridges is a moth or butterfly wing scale
- Bugscope Teamyou can see more scales, scattered around
- Bugscope Teamit's a little socket for the antenna
- Bugscope Teamin the lower right corner you can see part of the compound eye
- Teacherwhat is the highest magnification we can get
Bugscope Teamthe microscope will magnify over 800,000x, but we cannot get research quality images at over 250,000x or so
- Bugscope Teamgood driving!
- Bugscope Teamif you went to super high mag you would have to have something to look at or it would not be very interesting
- Bugscope Teamwhen you get a chance to check out the brochosomes, you will be looking at something on the nanoscale
- Teacherare we looking at the compond eye
Bugscope Teamyes you are!
- 10:27 am
- Bugscope Teamit is a bit hard to make out the individual facets, which are called ommatidia
- Bugscope Teamit is kind of a smooth compound eye. The mosquito eye shoes you the ommatidia better. Ommatidia are the individual components
- Bugscope Teamin roaches, crickets, grasshoppers, and mantises the compound eyes are often rather smooth like this, as Cate says
- Bugscope Teamwhen a mosquito dies its body becomes dehydrated like this, and the compound eyes collapse like a basketball with no air in it
- Teacherwhat are the holes on his face
Bugscope Teamthose are where palps used to be. Palps are mouthparts that are for tasting food
- Bugscope Teamthe donut like things are where the antenna were
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that this mosquito really got rolled around after it died
- 10:33 am
- Bugscope Teamyou can also see its proboscis, through which the females suck blood
- Bugscope Teamthat is the tube that is curved off to the right
- Bugscope Teamyou can see an ant in the upper right...
- Bugscope Teamand one to the upper left now
- Bugscope Teamlimbs can fall off easily once insects die and dry out
Bugscope Teamyes we did not do that on purpose
- Bugscope Teamthese ants are so small that it is difficult to position them when we make the sample stub
- Bugscope Teamsee the compound eye?
- Bugscope Teamand the antennae?
- Teacheryes we do
- Bugscope Teamants get most of their information via their antennae, which pick up even very faint chemical signals, like perfume in the air
- Bugscope Teamsome ant species do not have eyes, and although some ants see very well, most do not
- 10:38 am
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that the ant has microsetae -- super tiny 'hairs' on its head
- Teacherwhy is it so fuzzy
Bugscope Teamsome insects are hairier than others but those hairs- setae- are there to give information to senses like touch or whether it's hot or cold
- Bugscope Teamthis is a spider's fang, and here we actually broke into the head when we were trying to make it more apparent for you
- Bugscope Teamthey don't have soft sensitive skin like us, they have hard shells that, without those hairs, wouldn't know if something was brushing again it. They work like cat whiskers
- Bugscope Teamthe spider is on its back
- Bugscope Teamspiders are like insects in that they also depend on sensitive setae (hairs) to give them information about their surroundings
- Bugscope Teamsome spiders also have what are called 'urticating hairs' that they can release when something is getting too close
- Bugscope Teamall those hairs help them feel vibrations
- 10:43 am
- Bugscope Teamthe urticating hairs irritate the nasal linings of dogs and other mammals and discourage them from bothering the spider
- Teacherdid the eye dry out
Bugscope Teamthe spider's eyes were on the other side of the body where we could not see them
- Bugscope Teamnow we are looking into the Mexican jumping bean, and all we see are lots and lots of scales, which are actually also a type of setae
- Bugscope Teamthe moth hatched through this trapdoor
- Bugscope Teamand the scales show us that it was somewhat of a struggle for the moth to hatch
- Teacherwhat type of spider is it
Bugscope Teamit's a small brown spider, but we do not know just what species it is
Bugscope Teamsome type of house spider
Bugscope Teami think it was a wolf spider
- Bugscope Teamthe moth!
- Bugscope Teamyou can see its compound eyes, which are much more complex, apparently, and have many more ommatidia than those of the ant
- 10:49 am
- Bugscope Teamit is covered with scales, which are helpful to have in a number of ways
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that one of the palps is broken off, and the other is incomplete and the scales have been stripped off of part of it
- Bugscope Teamthere are thousands of ommatidia in each of the compound eyes
- Bugscope Teamthere is one of the antennae
- Bugscope Teamone way that scales help insects like moths, butterflies, mosquitoes, and silverfish is by falling off so easily. it means that if they fly or run into a web the scales might stick to the web while the insect can slip out
- Bugscope Teamin life, insects are probably annoyed by stuff being on their eyes and are usually able to clean them off with their legs
- Bugscope Teamscales also seem to function like feathers, to a bird; and they are also responsible for the color patterns we see
- 10:54 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is the leafhopper's claw, and it is covered with brochosomes
- Bugscope Teambrochosomes are nanoparticles that only leafhoppers produce
- Bugscope Teamthe little balls are the brochosomes. The weird bright areas are where the sample is charging with electrons
- Bugscope Teamleafhoppers form brochosomes in the Malpighian tubules, and they have what is called an 'anointing behavior' in which they spread them onto their exoskeleton
- Bugscope TeamI'm not sure where on the claw we are right now
- Bugscope Teamwe're looking in an area that is not coated well with gold-palladium
- Bugscope Teamthere are better places to go to higher mag
- 10:59 am
- Bugscope Teamthat cavern looking area is where the claw squeezing together
- Bugscope Teamwhoa!
- Bugscope Teamthis is a stinger belonging to a cicada killer wasp. Its name derived from what it does
- Bugscope Teamcicada killers sting cicadas, paralyzing them, and then they carry them home
- 11:05 am
- Bugscope Teama cicada killer drags the cicada into its burrow, in the ground, and lays at least one egg on it. when the egg hatches, the larva can eat the snack that the cicada killer thoughtfully provided
- Teacherwhat does the grove do
Bugscope Teamthe groove may allow the sting to penetrate more easily
- Teacherthis wasp?
- Teacherhow big is a wasp
Bugscope Teamthey can be two inches long, and I think sometimes longer
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the bigger ones.Little bigger than a bumblebee
- Bugscope Teamthe males do not sting, and the females will not sting people unless they are surprised or handled roughly
- Teacherthank you - that was a whole class "shout out" we have to go to lunch. Students want to know if we can sign up again this year ?
- Bugscope Teamyou can always apply
- Bugscope Teamplease sign up for next year soon -- we have been overwhelmed with applications and are booked at least several months ahead
- Teacherwe will.
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
- Teacherttyl
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-14
- Bugscope Teamsee you next time!
- 11:10 am
- Teacherwe love this-science 5
