Connected on 2012-04-17 16:00:00
from Contra Costa, California, United States
- 3:01 pm
- Bugscope Teamsample is pumping down...
- 3:17 pm
- Bugscope Teamwe will start making presets in just a few minutes
- Bugscope Teamwe're waiting for the vacuum to get just a bit better
- 3:23 pm
- 3:28 pm
- 3:33 pm
- Bugscope Teamhello Bear!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Teamwe are making a few more presets before your session starts
- Bugscope Teamthis is a silverfish
- Bugscope Teamplease let us drive for a bit longer
- Bugscope Teamcan you see this?
- 3:39 pm
- 3:44 pm
- Bugscope Teamokay we are ready to roll!
- Bugscope Teamplease feel free to take control and drive around your sample
- 3:50 pm
- Bugscope TeamHi Joe!
- Bugscope TeamDid the software reject your name?
- Guest EntomologistHey, yea it says i'm still logged in as Joe
- Guest Entomologistor something
- Bugscope Teamyou could see today that we are working to get you and Linnea set up as admins
- Bugscope Teamit's done the same thing to me before
- Guest EntomologistYea, I'll come up to talk with alex tomorrow
- TeacherHello!
Bugscope TeamHello Bear! Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Teamthis is some kind of small bee
- Bugscope Teamits head is tilted back a bit so we see its mandibles up top
- TeacherThanks ! I need to pick up the kids from recess be right back. This is a first grade class, so we will probably have more general questions
Bugscope Teamhey no problem this should be fun
- 4:00 pm
- Teacherok we are here. Can you please describe what we are looking at?
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of a small bee. you can see that it is very hairy, and you can see, especially on the right, its compound eyes
- Bugscope Teamcompound eyes have many lenses -- many facets -- that are called ommatidia
- TeacherWhat are compound eyes?
Bugscope Teamthere are simple eyes, called ocelli, that mostly just register light and help the insect keep oriented with the sun so it does not get lost. Compound eyes are what the insect uses to see.
- TeacherHow does that affect the bee's vision?
Bugscope Teamthe many facets help the bee see movement better. they can also see in blues. greens, and ultraviolet
- Guest EntomologistBut their vision is more pixelated, and at a much lower resolution that what we see
- Bugscope Teamif you had compound eyes you would have better peripheral vision -- you would be able to see much more of what is around you, so you wouldn't have to turn your head as much
- TeacherDo bees have teeth?
Bugscope Teamno but they have jaws that you can see to the left\
- 4:06 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe things that resemble teeth here are the covering to the glossa -- to the bee's tongue
- Guest Entomologistthe bees use nectar from flowers (which is a sugar solution of sorts), they take that in, and hold it in their nectar stomach, as that is mixed with various enzymes and things, honey is made.
- TeacherThe kids want to know how bees make honey?
Bugscope Teamhoney comes from the nectar the bees collect as they visit flowers. but it is not just nectar; the bees process it, as Joee said.
- Guest Entomologistthey're probably hairy for sensory and thermoregulation
- Guest Entomologist*keeping warm
- Guest Entomologist*the hairs help them feel the environment around them.
- Teacherawesome!
- TeacherAlso, why are the bees hairy?
Bugscope Teambees and other insects have hairs on them called setae. The hairs tell the insect when things are touching them. They can't feel things through their hard exoskeletons (which is similar to you wearing a suit of armor), so they have hairs to help give them information
- Bugscope Teaminsects no have skin, like we do. instead, they have a kind of shell that is called an exoskeleton
- Bugscope Teamoops
- Bugscope Teaminsects do not have skin, I should have said
- 4:12 pm
- Teacheralso, what do bees eat?
Bugscope Teamthey eat nectar and honey
- TeacherHow does the bee eat?
Bugscope Teamit uses its tongue to suck up nectar and put it in its 'honey stomach,' which is separate from the stomach it uses to digest food. when it is hungry, however, there is a valve from the honey stomach to the digestive stomach that lets it feed itself from the honey stomach
- TeacherVery cool. Moving on to the ant
- Guest Entomologistthey also eat pollen
- Bugscope Teamin the wintertime some beekeepers feed their bees high-fructose corn syrup; that seems to be a major cause of colony collapse disorder
- Guest Entomologistlots of pollen (protein)
- Bugscope Teamthis is a large ant
- Bugscope Teamyou can see its mandibles (jaws) very clearly. they open from side to side like a gate. not like our jaws, which open up and down
- Bugscope Teamyou can also see the ant's antennae, and you can barely see one of its compound eyes, to the right below the antenna
- Guest Entomologista genus of ants known as the trapjaw ants have one of the fastest moving parts (its mandibles) known in animals
- Bugscope Teamin the foreground we see the ant's knee, one of six knees since it has six legs
- 4:17 pm
- Bugscope Teamants do most of their communication using chemical signals, and the antennae pick up those signals
- Bugscope Teamnow you can see the compound eye -- the low 'dome' -- very well
- Teacherwhat is a low dome ?
- Teacheris that what the antennae is for?
Bugscope Teamyes that's right
- Bugscope Teamyou are doing a good job driving
- TeacherThanks I was nervous!
- Bugscope Teamthe antennae have lots of chemoreceptors on them that process the chemical signals
- Bugscope Teamif an ant smells dead, the worker ants that clean up the trash will throw it away even if it is moving
- Guest EntomologistI think Scot was referring to the apparent shape of the eye as 'dome' shaped.
- TeacherAh makes sense
- Bugscope Teamsomeone did an experiment in which they took the dead ant smell and rubbed it on a live ant; the other ants treated the live ant like it was dead
- Bugscope Teamnow we can what the cuticle looks like up close
- Teacherso different ants have different jobs?
Bugscope Teamyes and they come in different sizes and different shapes, to some extent, depending on what their job is
- Bugscope Teamthis is a much smaller ant]
- 4:22 pm
- Bugscope Teamyou can see its mandibles, and you can see that it compound eye has many fewer facets
- Guest Entomologistyup, this also depends on the species of ants, some ants like the big headed ants have more than one size caste
- Bugscope Teamthe ant does not only have brains in its head; often there also also a lot of muscles to power the jaws
- Bugscope Teamalmost all of the ants we see are female
- Guest Entomologistthe larger ones are usually responsible to seed/large food mashing/defense, and the smaller ones do most of the other general tasks, although some tasks can overlap
- Bugscope Teammale ants have wings, and the only other ant that has wings, for awhile, is the queen
- Guest Entomologistthe males only mate and don't work
- Teacherwhy female?
Bugscope Teamum because males are useless and lazy
- Guest Entomologistthey're a lazy bunch, they also take up resources
- Teacherhahaha!
- Bugscope TeamI am joking, a little...
- Guest Entomologistthis is also true in most social insects
- Guest Entomologistbees, wasps, etc...
- TeacherT
- Bugscope Teamthe male ants fly out to breed with a queen from another faraway colony; when they get back the ants in their own nest will not let them in
- Guest Entomologistmales are born from unfertilized eggs
- Teacherso the female ants do more of the work, and the males take up more resources? What does this remind me of ? :)
Bugscope Teamcannot imagine anything like that in humans
- Guest Entomologistand a lot of times, after mating are actually kicked out of the nests
- Teacheroops the class wants to know how can ants be so strong?
Bugscope Teamthey probably have better innervation of their muscles, per their size, than most of us do
- 4:28 pm
- Bugscope Teamso they can call on more energy at one time than we normally can
- Bugscope Teamthis is a female housefly
- Bugscope Teamits eyes are to the sides of its head -- we can see that it has compound eyes with thousands of facets
- Guest Entomologistit has something to do with ratio of their mass and the mass that is muscles
- Bugscope Teamin the middle, top, of the head, we see the bases of the antennae. the antennae are broken off, however. certainly after the fly died
- TeacherThe eyes seem very large, can they see well?
Bugscope Teamyes they can see fairly well. often flying insects have much more complex and better eyes than insects that do not fly
- Bugscope Teamthe larger hairs -- the bristles -- that we see are kind of like cat or rat whiskers
- Guest Entomologistthey can see movement very well. and they almost have a 360 vision
- Guest Entomologistprobably so they can avoid predators
Bugscope Teamit makes them hard to sawt
- TeacherWhy is that? To help them navigate?
Bugscope Teamthey need to be able to see as well as they can fly. if they aren't careful they will fly into things and not survive long.
- Bugscope Teamswat
- 4:33 pm
- TeacherIs this the mouth area?
Bugscope Teamyes it is!
- TeacherWhat are the spikes?
Bugscope Teamthe spikes help the fly feel when it is touching its food
- Bugscope Teamthe background with the bubbles is carbon tape. i use it to stick the critters on
- TeacherI don't think I've heard of a true bug. Is there another nickname?
- Guest Entomologisthmm
- Bugscope Teamthis is a shield bug which is a type of true bug
- Guest Entomologisti don't know of another nickname
- Bugscope Teamyou may think they are some sort of beetle but they aren't. They have a long proboscis they use to drink liquids with
- Guest Entomologistbut cicadas, leafhoppers, aphids all fall under true bugs
- Guest Entomologistyup. most true bugs can fly
- TeacherDoes it fly? Also, what are these bubble like things?
Bugscope Teamyes it can fly. The bubble things here are pores where different looking setae are
- 4:39 pm
- TeacherWhat are setae again?
Bugscope Teamthey are insect hairs
- Guest EntomologistThat's it's proboscis
- Guest Entomologist*its
- Guest Entomologistit's a modified mouth part for sucking up plant juices, insect hemolymph and sometimes blood
- Teacherlike a straw. Does a shield bug drink human blood?
- TeacherDoes it have a heart and brain?
- TeacherAre they poisonous?
- Guest Entomologistno. most shield bugs feed on plants, some prey on other insects
- Guest Entomologistthey have a brain, but no heart
- Guest Entomologistthey are not poisonous.
- 4:44 pm
- Guest Entomologistyup. beetles are insects
- TeacherIs a beetle an insect?
Bugscope Teamyes it is.
- TeacherWhat do they eat?
- Guest Entomologist*at least not a heart, in the mammalian sense
- Guest Entomologistbeetles eat a diversity of things, carpet beetles munch on your carpet, and various dead tissue
- Guest Entomologistsome beetles are detritivorous, so they break down deacying matter like roadkill, etc
- Bugscope Teamnow you can see the beetle's mandibles, and you can also see two of its palps
- Guest Entomologistmany of them are plant feeding, the asian longhorned beetle, and emerald ash borers both bore into trees
- TeacherWhat is the spine looking thing down the middle?
Bugscope Teami think you are referring to the palp. There are 2 of them here. The palps help the beetle taste or move around food
- Bugscope Teammany insects have four palps much like that, and they function as accessory mouthparts
- Guest Entomologistsome beetles feed on other insects
- TeacherWhat are the cone shaped things? Do they eat with these? Do they have mandibles like the ant?
Bugscope Teamthose are two of the palps, and at their tips they have sensors that taste food, like taste buds on your tongue
- Bugscope Teamthe mandibles are the flat pokey parts that meet near the upper left to middle of the screen
- Bugscope Teamoh and yes they have mandibles like the ant
- Bugscope Teamthe mandibles look like forks, or sporks\
- TeacherThe bell is about to ring and we are out of time! Thank you soooo much this was as great experience. The kids say AWESOME! and THANKS!
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
- 4:49 pm
- Bugscope Teamhttps://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2012-029
- Guest Entomologistno problem! thank you!
- Bugscope Teamcopied below is a link to your member page
- Bugscope Teamthanks for joining us this afternoon!
- Bugscope TeamThank you, Joe!
- Bugscope Teamyes thank you Joe for helping out
- Guest Entomologistnp later!
- Bugscope TeamBye!
- Bugscope Teambye
