Connected on 2012-05-29 08:00:00
from Manatee, Florida, United States
- 7:36 am
- Bugscope Teamsample is in microscope and pumping down
- Bugscope Teamvacuum is close
- Bugscope Teamonce the vacuum is good we will start making presets for this morning's session
- 7:46 am
- 7:51 am
- 7:59 am
- Bugscope TeamGood morning, Barney!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Teamwe are still collecting presets from your sample, but please feel free to ask us questions
- 8:04 am
- TeacherGood morning, from Myakka Elementary in Florida. Is that a bee?
- Bugscope Teampresently, this is a small beetle
- Bugscope Teamsee its compound eyes, its mandibles, and its antennae
- Bugscope Team?
- Bugscope Teamalso, you can see one of its legs
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of its six legs, and we can tell that it would have no problem crawling on a vertical surface
- TeacherWhy do they have the claw-like on their legs?
Bugscope Team they are much like hands, to us; many insects have claws, and some of them are capable of gripping, like we do with our hands
- Bugscope Teamwe see lots of hairs, called setae, that help the beetle sense its surroundings
- Bugscope Teaminsects do not have skin, like we do; instead they have an exoskeleton, which is like a shell, or like if we were wearing armor
- 8:09 am
- Bugscope Teamthe setae stick through that shell and allow the insect to sense its environment
- Bugscope Teamsome of the setae (the hairs, or bristles) are chemosensory, meaning that they can be used to pick up scents in the air
- Bugscope Teamsome of the setae are mechanosensory, for touch sensing
- Bugscope Teamthis is a very small ant
- Bugscope Teamsee its compound eye?
- Bugscope Teamyou can also see one of its antennae
- Bugscope Teamand you can see one mandible -- one of its jaws
- Bugscope Teamthe antennae connects to the head at a ball and socket joint
- Bugscope Teambut it is the tiny palps that help it taste and sometimes manipulate its food
- Bugscope Teamthe ant is so small that it was hard to hold, even with forceps, and place in an upright position on the stub for you today
- Bugscope Teamants depend much more on chemical signals they collect through their antennae than they depend on sight
- 8:14 am
- GuestDoes a wasp have compound eyes?
Bugscope Teamyes it does! and they are usually much much larger than those of the ant
- Bugscope Teamhere we could actually count the ommatidia -- the individual facets of the compound eye
- Bugscope Teambut some wasps can have as many as 17,000 ommatidia per compound eye
- Bugscope Teambecause I am using the SEM (scanning electron microscope) computer, I can also help focus
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the fruitfly's six claws
- Bugscope Teamthe tiny frilly parts are its means of sticking to surfaces
- Bugscope Teamsome of the other features help the fruit fly sense when, for example, it is grabbing something
- Bugscope Teamsee the things to the left that look like little flower stalks?
- Bugscope Teamthose are 'tenent setae,' which the fruit fly uses to help it stick to surfaces
- 8:19 am
- Bugscope Teaminsects have a head, a thorax (to which the legs are attached), six legs, an abdomen, and two antennae
- Bugscope Teamthe ends of the legs -- the last 5 or so segments, are called 'tarsi'
- Guestwhy does the centipede antennas have little sqiguls at the end?
Bugscope Teamthey may be areas that are more sensitive to chemicals in the air, or that it can sense by touching
- Bugscope Teamnow we see three legs, and they are stretched toward a filter that Cate put on the stub that has bacteria on it
- Bugscope Teamthe background to what we are looking at now is carbon doublestick tape
- Bugscope Teamplease let us know if you have any trouble activating other presets today
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the large bee's claws
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that it has lots of fur, or setae, on its arm
- 8:24 am
- Bugscope Teamthose spikes, or spines, are setae that let the bee know when it has something in its grasp
- Bugscope Teamyou can see bubbles in the carbon tape in the background
- Bugscope Teamyou can click on the little round things to get the 'scope to center on that area
- GuestWhy does a beetle have spikes on its legs?
Bugscope Teamthe spikes are sometimes defensive, to help keep the insect from being bitten
- TeacherWhat are the circular structures in the upper right?
Bugscope Teamgood job driving!
Bugscope TeamI think you have found some pollen grains
- Bugscope Teamthose are some kind of pollen
- StudentWhat are the lines on a wasp's wing?
- Bugscope Teamwe don't always recognize things we see at this level
- Bugscope Teambut we see a lot of pollen, and we see a lot of mold spores
- Bugscope Teamyou can see, also, that the surface of the claw is patterned, and those shapes make it stronger
- 8:29 am
- Bugscope Teamin the very center we see tiny pores in something that looks like plant material
- Bugscope TeamMonarch butterflies have setae on their claws that help them 'taste' what it is that they land on
- StudentHow many legs are on a beetle
Bugscope Teamsix! always six, with insects
- Bugscope Teaminsect legs are jointed, like our legs, but of course they have more joints than we do
- Teacherdo you have a dragon fly?
Bugscope Teamnot today. there is a ladybug I bet I can find for you, and also a ladybug larva
- Bugscope Teammaybe a mosquito as well
- Guestwhat is your best estimate of how long have spiders lived?
- Bugscope Teamspiders are said to have been around for about 400 million years
- 8:34 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is salt from a Wendy's restaurant
- Bugscope Teamspiders have eight legs -- they are arachnids, not insects
- Guestwhy do so bugs have scale.
Bugscope Teambutterflies, moths, silverfish, mosquitoes, and few other insects have scales, which serve a lot of purposes, including helping escape from spider webs
- TeacherWe would love to see the lady bug.
Bugscope TeamOk I will look for it now...
- Studentwere is the stinger on the bee.
Bugscope Teamit is at the tip of its abdomen
- Bugscope Teamthis is the ladybug!
- 8:40 am
- Guestwhy do bee have hare
Bugscope Teamthe hair is sensory, for one thing, and it also helps the bee keep its body temperature stable
- Bugscope Teamif the bee did not have any hair it could not sense its environment, but it would also be cold, sometimes, slowing it way down
- TeacherWhy do insects have compound eyes?
Bugscope Teamcompound eyes allow insects to see around them more readily, without moving their heads too much; they also are very sensitive to changes in the visual field -- so they can sense quickly when something is coming after them
- Bugscope Teamhere you can see the compound eyes on either side of the ladybug's head
- Bugscope Teammany flying insects also have three 'simple' eyes, called ocelli, on the tops of their heads
- Bugscope Teamocelli help flying insects keep track of where they are with respect to the sun
- TeacherThe students are really enjoying this. We are switching groups right now.
Bugscope Teamsweet!
- Bugscope Teamladybug palp
- 8:45 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is a mosquito
- 8:50 am
- Bugscope Teamcool
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of a female mosquito
- Bugscope Teamits eyes are a bit desiccated
- Bugscope Teamits proboscis is sticking up toward us, out of focus
- Bugscope Teamit has large compound eyes that cover most of its head
- Bugscope Teamand most of its body is covered with scales, which are kind of like tiny feathers
- Bugscope Teamscales up close resemble potato chips with ridges
- TeacherWhere is the stinger?
Bugscope Teamit is pointed right toward us
- Bugscope Teamthe sharp parts of the mosquito's proboscis are inside, where we do not see them
- Bugscope Teamthe mouthparts are all encased in a long tube called the proboscis. The tube looks similar to an elephant's trunk
- Bugscope Teamfemale mosquitoes are the ones that bite -- they need to have the protein from blood so they can lay eggs
- 8:55 am
- Bugscope Teamit has sharp cutting parts within that work like steak knives to cut into our skin. The it has a tube which is drinks from and also injects us with an anticoagulant
- Bugscope Teamwe can tell this is a female mosquito because it does not have ornate, frilly antennae like the males do
- Bugscope Teamthe thing that looks like a donut is the base of the antenna, called a pedicel
- Studentwhy do centipied have so many legs
Bugscope Teamthat is the way they have worked out having a long body that can crawl into little cracks and move among leaf litter
- Guesthow do grasshoppers defeat there enemys
Bugscope Teamone thing that some grasshoppers do is surprise their predators by flashing the bright colors on the insides of their wingsings
- Bugscope Teamgrasshoppers can also force fluids through their cuticle onto the surface of their bodies, and sometimes those fluids are offensive -- they smell bad
- 9:01 am
- Guestwhat happens when a bee stings you
Bugscope Teamwhen a honeybee stings a mammal, with its thick skin, like ours, it loses its whole stinger, which gets stuck in that thick skin
- Bugscope Teamthe honeybee's stinger gets pulled out of its body, so it now has a hole in its body, and it essentially bleeds to death
- Bugscope Teamhoneybees can sting other insects, for example, and not lose their stingers
- Bugscope Teamwasps can sting repeatedly, as we know
- Studentwhy can't you feel the mosquitoes/
Bugscope Teamsometimes we can, but they have very fine cutting mouthparts that make it very easy to bite you without you noticing
- Bugscope Teamwhen a horsefly bites you, you definitely feel it because it does not have fine stylets cutting straight into your skin; instead it has slashing/cutting mouthparts
- Bugscope Teamhorseflies slash your skin and then suck up the blood that comes to the surface
- 9:06 am
- Bugscope Teamhere we are looking at one of the six claws of a large black bee
- Bugscope Teamthis is an ant, so very small...
- Bugscope Teamif you look at the scalebar, just below the image we see now, it reads "200 microns"
- Bugscope Team200 microns is one fifth of a millimeter
- TeacherIs that an eye?
Bugscope Teamthe bumpy part is the compound eye yes
- Bugscope Teama milllimeter is one thousand microns, or micrometers
- Guestwhat does a centapead eat
Bugscope Teamcentipedes are usually predators, and they eat insects and other arthropods
- Bugscope Teamthose are probably a different species of mosquito that have the stripes.
- Studentwhy do the big mosquitoes have strips on it's wing's
Bugscope Teamdifferent mosquitoes have different patterns, in part so they can recognize their own species; they can also recognize their own species by the noise the wings make, so if the wings are different they will make a different noise
- 9:11 am
- GuestWhy does the spider have hair.
Bugscope Teamthe spiders have hair for the same reason other insects have hairs. The spiders use their sensitive hairs to tell them what is going on around it's environment. Some specialized hairs on the spiders are good for sensing vibrations.
- TeacherCan insects see behind their head?
Bugscope Teamwhen they have large compound eyes they have better peripheral vision, so they can see much more than, for example, we can
Bugscope Teamalso, many flying insects have extra eyes on the top of the head that register light and shadows, so those 'ocelli' also likely help alert them to something that might be approaching them
- Guestdoes a dragonfly have a stinger
Bugscope Teamno they don't, but they are aggressive with other insects. They will have little fights with other dragonflies, and I think the spikes that are found on their wings help shred the other dragonfly's wings. Dragonflies are also the fastest flying insect
- Bugscope Teamants like this one are almost all females
- StudentWhy dose the bettle die in the sun?
Bugscope Teamsome last longer than others; it may be because they cannot regulate their body temperature very well and get too hot
- 9:18 am
- TeacherHow many legs does a centepied have?
Bugscope Teamthey are said to have from less than 20 to more than 300 legs; they are also said to have odd numbers of pairs of legs, never even numbers of pairs
- Bugscope Teamalso, to help distinguish centipedes from millipedes, one thing you can do is count how many legs they have per segment; millipedes will have two pairs of legs per segment (four legs), whereas centipedes will have one pair of legs per segment (two legs per segment)
- Guestwhy are the wings on bugs so fragile
Bugscope Teamthey seem thin and fragile to us, but to an insect they are pretty durable. They are made of the same material as the rest of their exoskeleton
Bugscope Teaminsects have an accelerated life, compared to us
- Bugscope Teamalso most adult insects don't live longer than a month. But looks like SEM (Scot) pretty much already said that
- Studenthow many legs does a centapaed has
Bugscope Teamthey can have from about 17 pairs to maybe 147 pairs
- Bugscope Teamso from 34 legs to actually almost 300
- 9:24 am
- Guestwhy does spiders have thick hair?
Bugscope Teamspider hair has different purposes; one is sensing vibration, one in some cases is being an irritant. That is, some spiders have what are called 'urticating' hairs that they release that make potential predators itch
- TeacherWhat is an aphid?
Bugscope Teamthey are a type of true bug that is an agricultural pest. They eat plants and exude honeydew on them. Some insects will harvest the honeydew. Ladybugs are notoriously known for eating aphids
- Bugscope Teamwe also know that hair (usually called 'setae') can help with keeping the body warm
- Bugscope Teamthis is an adult ladybug
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head...
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that its compound eyes are streamlined into its head, on either side of the head
- Studentwhere does an aphid live?
Bugscope Teamthey live on plants. When there are too many in the area, then the next batch of aphids born will have wings and those with wings will migrate to a new area.
- TeacherIs there a difference between girl and boy ladybugs?
Bugscope Teamthere is a difference, but as with many insects you cannot always tell from outside
- Bugscope Teammany insects look the same from the outside, but inside they are different; fortunately, usually they themselves can tell
- 9:29 am
- Guestwhat happens when a ant bites you
Bugscope Teamants can bite, and it might hurt if they have large mouthparts; but they can (some of them) also sting you, and some of those stings are very painful
- Guestdo lady bugs bite
Bugscope Teamthe asian ladybugs do
Bugscope Teamwe have read that Asian ladybugs sometimes confuse your skin with things they like to eat
- TeacherWhat is the clumpy looking stuff?
Bugscope Teamit is probably leftover food and other debris that did not get into the mouth
- Studentwhat happens when a hornet stings you?
Bugscope Teamthey could sting you again if they wanted to. They could also call other hornets to help them. Those in the wasp family are aggressive.
- Guestwhy dose it hirt when a ant bites you
Bugscope Teamsometimes they have venom that is very painful; sometimes they can shoot formic acid at you, and that can sting
- Bugscope Teamthis is cool
- 9:34 am
- TeacherWhat is a hamuli?
- Bugscope Teambees and wasps have four wings (compared to flies, which have two, and dragonflies, which also have four wings)
- Bugscope Teamone reason bees and wasps have four wings is so they can fold them better when they go into their hive or nest
- Bugscope Teamwhen they fly, however, bees and wasps hook their fore- and hind-wings together
- Bugscope Teamthe curved hooks we see now are on the hind-wing, and they are what make the hind- and fore-wings attach for flying
- Studentwhat hapenens when a beetle bites you
Bugscope Teamusually nothing. They won't sting you. It should usually just be like a pinching.
- Bugscope TeamWhen Cate made this sample for today, she cut the wings from bee and put them flat on the stub so we could see the hamuli -- the wing-hooks -- very clearly
Bugscope Teamcut the wings from 'the' bee
- TeacherCan we an insect with a wing?
Bugscope Teamthis is the edge of the wing of the bee
- 9:39 am
- Bugscope Teamwe can likely also see the wings on the mosquito, and also we can see the wings on the fruitfly
- Bugscope Teamwhoa this is cool!
- Bugscope Teamlook what we found on one of the hamuli!
- Bugscope Teamthe tiny particles we had seen briefly on the hamuli are called brochosomes, and they are less than 400 nanometers in diameter; they are nanoparticles
- 9:45 am
- GuestWe are switching groups right now.
Bugscope Teamcool. I will go back and find the brochosomes.
- Bugscope Teamthis is what a cute little ladybug looks like before it becomes an adult
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of its arms
- Bugscope Teamwe can see that it is broken at the top, near where it connects with the thorax
- 9:52 am
- Guestwhy do bugs need intenas
Bugscope Teamthe use their antennas to read chemical signals from other insects.
- TeacherWhy do the beetles have hair?
Bugscope Teamone reason they have hair is so they can sense their environment, because they do not have skin like we do with nerve endings in it; they also do not have noses
- Guestcan bugs burp?
Bugscope TeamI don't think so.
Bugscope Teamthey can fart- Insect flatulence may account for one-fifth of all the methane emissions on this planet
- TeacherIs that an eye?
Bugscope Teamthat is one of the very short antennae on the ladybug larva's head
- Bugscope Teamnow we can see three small crumpled eyes; they are called stemmata in caterpillars, and a larva is a caterpillar
- Guestwhy do grass hopers have spiks on there lages
- Studentwhy dose a grasshoper have spikse on there legs
Bugscope Teamthe spikes along their hind legs are used to make noises. They rub them on the forewings.
Bugscope Teamkind of like a needle on a record
- 9:58 am
- Bugscope Teamthe noises the grasshoppers make are presumably to attract mates
- Studenthow do a dragonfly grow skin on its wings
Bugscope Teamits wings are made of chitin, which is the same stuff the cuticle -- the exoskeleton -- is made of. they do not really have skin on their wings; it is just very thin chitin
- Guesthow fast does a betel go
Bugscope Teambeetles fly at varying speeds, but often fairly quickly; they are usually not that good at flying and go only short distances
- Studentwhy does the bug have sharp leg
Bugscope Teamthey seem sharp to us because they are so small, but sometimes the sharpness has to do with protection from being bitten, since being sharp is kind of like a thorn
- Bugscope Teamthe legs are not sharp to them.
- Bugscope TeamAnts often look like they are eating another insect, but those are palps. Palps are mouthparts used to taste or move around food
- Bugscope Teamgood job driving!
- 10:03 am
- Bugscope Teamoften ants do not see very well, although there are species of ants that do see quite well
- Bugscope Teamants get most of the information they need from the environment, and from other ants, as chemical signals, through their antennae
- GuestWhy do dragonflies have twis wings
Bugscope Teamthey have 2 pairs of wings to help them maneuver around better. Flies are the only flying insects that have just 1 pair of wings. Ants, wasps, and bees have 2 pairs but they hook them together to make them work like 1 pair
- StudentHow dose the dragonfly get so big of eles.
Bugscope Teampart of the dragonfly lifecycle occurs underwater, where they are also predators. if they feed well when they are larvae, or nymphs, they can become large dragonflies
- Guesthow high can dragon flies fly.
Bugscope Teamdragonflies usually fly around 7-9ft above or near water
- 10:09 am
- StudentCan bugs fly as high as birds fly?
Bugscope Teamthis I am not sure about; some insects get carried along by the wind, and they may not be exactly flying; I imagine birds can fly higher but really don't know
- TeacherHow do mosquitos drink our blood?
Bugscope Teamonly female mosquitoes bite us, and the reason is because they need a blood meal to reproduce
- Bugscope TeamI just read something that said that birds fly higher than insects fly; when insects get super high in the sky they are carried along by winds
- Guestwhat do betels eat
Bugscope Teamthat depends on the type of beetle. Some eat other insects, some eat plants/wood, and some eat dead matter
- Guestwhat does a milled peed do
Bugscope Teammillipedes are often predatory -- they eat insects and other arthropods
- TeacherWhat part stings us?
- Bugscope Teamactually I was wrong about the majority of millipedes -- most of them are herbivorous; they feed on plant material
- 10:14 am
- StudentWere are mosquitos ears
Bugscope Teamthey don't have ears but their scales can help feel vibrations
Bugscope Teammale mosquitoes have frilly antennae compared to the females, and the antennae are very sensitive to vibration, which is what sound is. the males can sense the wingbeats of females that are in the same species using their antennae
- Guestwhy do grass hoppers have spikes
Bugscope Teamthey rub the spikes on their legs along their wings to create noises to attract mates
- Guesthow do dragonfly fly so fast.
Bugscope Teamthey can fly around 35 miles an hour
Bugscope Teamthe shape and light weight of the body coupled with the large double pairs of wings make dragonflies not only fast but also able to maneuver very well in flight
- StudentHow do flies fly so fast when you try to slap it ! . . .
Bugscope Teamflies can see you very well with their compound eyes, and they can also respond quickly to the wind you produce when you try to swat them
- 10:21 am
- Bugscope Teamone thing about compound eyes is that they are very sensitive, with all of those individual lenses, to changes in the visual field. they can act quickly to changes in the visual field
- Guesthow do ticks jump so high
Bugscope Teamthey don't jump. They either fall from trees onto your head, or they stick their legs up in the air while holding onto long grass so that when you walk by they can cling onto you. From there they will make their way up your legs to your head usually
- Bugscope Teamfleas can jump high. They have hind legs that are like a rabbits hinglegs
- Student does a flea turn into a tick
Bugscope Teamno they are different species
- TeacherIs that pollen?
Bugscope Teamno, it looks like some dust and dirt. Maybe some sort of dried goop as well
- 10:26 am
- Guestwhy do bugs have so much dots on there eyes?
Bugscope Teamthe dots are called ommatidia, and they are lenses, almost like individual eyes; they help the insect see all around it
- Bugscope Teamthe two big round things are a single pollen grain that has two lobes, but the rest of the stuff is dirt and debris
- Studenthow does a mother ant lay two egg
Bugscope Teamthe queen ant lays thousands of eggs
- Guestwhy are ticks so small?
Bugscope Teamthey are similar to mites, which are also small. Ticks are a parasite that only needs to live on blood
- 10:31 am
- Bugscope Teamwow cool we can see the internal components of the proboscis
- Bugscope Teamthis is comparable to how a mosquito's mouthparts work
- Bugscope Teamthe proboscis is large, like a jackhammer, but the part that pierces the plant is smaller and sharper and inside
- Bugscope Teamthose smooth curvy things are the sharp parts
- Bugscope Teamthey have cutting tips that we cannot see
- Bugscope Teamaphids live on the fluids inside leaves, and they are destructive to plants. that is why ladybugs, like this one, are very helpful to us
- 10:36 am
- Guestwhat tipe of ant fly
Bugscope Teamthe ants that fly are either the queen, for a short time; or the male ants, who breed with queens from other colonies in flight
- Bugscope Teamso usually if you see an ant with wings it is a male
- TeacherWhat are the tiny hairs used for?
Bugscope Teamsome of the hairs let the insect know that it is touching something; some tell whether what it is touching is hot or cold; some of the hairs can taste; and some of the hairs we see now help filter out stuff that the ladybug does not want to go into its mouth
- Bugscope Teamgood job driving!
- Bugscope Teamthis looks like mashed up food -- it could be mashed up aphids!
- Bugscope Teamwhen we do this kind of work we often see things that we do not recognize
- Bugscope Teamnow we are looking at nanoparticles
- 10:41 am
- Bugscope Teamwe are imaging now at 89,600x
- TeacherThank you so much for this opportunity. The students need to leave for lunch so we are signing off. They are so excited, many are asking how to find your site from home.
- Bugscope Teamnormally when we work with researchers to look at their samples we have an advantage in that we can get closer to the samples and see that much better
- Bugscope Teamthanks for joining us today!
- TeacherThank you, have a great day!
- Bugscope TeamYou can access your chat and images from today at any time by going to your member page
- Bugscope Teamhttps://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-190
- Bugscope TeamThank you!
- Bugscope Teambelow is the link to this page -- your member page
- Bugscope Teamyou can also look it up online by going to the Bugscope home page and looking into the archives for 2011-190
- Bugscope TeamBye!