Connected on 2012-09-06 09:15:00
from Tillman, Oklahoma, United States
- 9:02 am
- Teacherhello
- Bugscope Teamhi!
- Bugscope Teamwe are working on presets and will be ready shortly
- Teacherok thank you
- 9:08 am
- 9:16 am
- Bugscope Teamok we are ready when you are!
- Bugscope Teamhi!
- Teacherok
- TeacherHi
- Teacherwhy would it have mold spores on its mouth?
- Bugscope Teama few of the insects today have some mold on them. Most often it's from sitting in a moist environment. Same reason why people usually have dehumidifiers in their basements
- Bugscope Teamtry to keep the mold from growing
- Bugscope Teamthe insects are all sitting on an aluminum disk that is covered with double stick carbon tape. We 'glue' the insects to the tape with the help of silver paint, and then we cover everything with a thin layer of metal to make everything conductive
- Bugscope Teamthe round lighter part in the lower right corner is some silver paint
- Bugscope Teamfeel free to select a preset on the left by clicking the left arrow and clicking one
- 9:21 am
- Teacherwhat is the carbon tape used for
Bugscope Teamthe carbon tape and the silver paint helps ground any excess charge from the electron beam
- Teacherwhy is the spider so hairy
Bugscope Teamit helps the spiders feel what's going on around it in their environment. Spiders are extra hairy compared to most insects to help them be better hunters. A lot of the time the hairs will help them feel vibrations on their web or through the ground
- Teacherdo they do something special?
- Bugscope Teamsome hairs are also chemosensory, allowing them to smell or taste
- Teacherwhy are there longer spiky hairs in with the shorter hairs?
Bugscope Teamthe longer, larger spikes are for feeling things around it, like if they bumped their leg into something.
- Bugscope Teamhairs on arthropods are supposed to be called setae, since they aren't mammals.
- Teacherwhat is this part?
Bugscope Teamthey are called chelicerae. They are the parts the fangs are attached to. They move the fangs around
- 9:26 am
- Bugscope Teamthe fangs are just south
- Teacher(the fangs_
- Teacherare they lying flat right now?
Bugscope Teamyes, they are a little hidden, but the ends are going into a dry, caked area
- Bugscope Teamspiders like to drink their food so they bite their prey and inject them with a solvent that turns their insides to goo and then they drink out the goo
- Teacherwhat are hamuli?
Bugscope Teamhamuli are hooks that hook together the hind- and forewings
- Bugscope Teamthis allows the bees to fly like it's one pair of wings instead of two. Then when they land on something, they unhook the hamuli and fold their wings in to be more compact
- 9:31 am
- Bugscope Teamsadly I couldn't find any pollen on her
- Bugscope Teamso you can see the mandibles in the middle. They are hinged where they open like a gate
- Teacherwhat are the flaps over the bees mouth parts? They don't have fangs do they?
Bugscope Teambee jaws. No fangs. They can bite with them, though
- Teacherthe antennae look almost translucent. Is that because of the microscope projection?
Bugscope TeamThat's mostly because they are charging up with excess electrons. The electrons aren't going to ground so easily there
- 9:36 am
- Bugscope Teamthis roly poly has a bit of mold on it too
- Bugscope Teamthey aren't insects they are crustacians like crabs/lobsters
- Teacheris this the mold under his shell type exoskeleton?
Bugscope Teamyes it is!
- Teacherhe looks dirtier than the other insects.
- Bugscope Teamthere are also a few stray scales from some other insect, maybe a moth
- Teacherwhere are his eyes?
Bugscope Teamthey aren't visible but you are looking in the right area
- Bugscope Teamthey are usually found on the outside part of the shell next to where the antenna usually curves around
- Teacherso are they ever visible?
Bugscope Teamthey are, but this extra dirty specimen makes things more difficult
- 9:41 am
- Bugscope Teamso these special setae help manipulate the spider silk
- Bugscope Teamlike knitting needles?
- Teacherwhat is the big bump on the top setae?
Bugscope Teamsome type of juju. A piece of dust/dirt or maybe some dried bug blood. Not sure
- Bugscope Teamthis is special salt we only found at wendy's
- Bugscope TeamAnd they don't even carry it anymore. They have more regular salt now.
- TeacherIs it not typical NaCl?
- Teacherso why would salt from Wendy's be different from normal salt?
Bugscope Teamthis salt is very cool becuase of it's cubic aztec nature. It is still NaCl, but it has some anticaking agent in it to make it look like this
- Teacherwould that be to make it not stick?
Bugscope Teamthat's right.
- 9:47 am
- Bugscope Teamthese are ommatidia (which are the individual facets) of the compound eye on a crane fly
- Bugscope Teamthey are a little dried out right now, When the flies are alive, the ommatidia would look a little more plump
- Teacherdo they see different images or work together
Bugscope Teamthey see parts of the picture that usually overlap with what neighboring facets are seeing. The images are sent to the brain where they assemble into a full picture. A little bit like how our eyes work
- Teacherthat's neat
- Bugscope Teamhere are some pretty looking mold
- Teacheris it on anything in particular or just a sample of mold?
Bugscope Teamjust a sample. It is all gathered like a bouquet of flowers
- Bugscope Teamnot something i would want around my house in a vase
- Teacherme either. :)
- TeacherWe are switching classes right now so in just a few minutes I will have my BIO II students in the room.
- TeacherThey will take a look for the remainder of our time.
- 9:52 am
- Bugscope Teamsure. Sounds like fun!
- Bugscope Teamsometimes when insects die, they vomit a little bit, which is most likely the dried cracked area you might see near the middle where the fangs are curving inward
- Teacherugh.
- Teacherwhat is that little hook on the compound eye
Bugscope Teamit's a tiny seta (hair) that helps feel the direction of the air currents
- Teacherthey would like to know if they blink
Bugscope Teamno they don't blink. The way they clear stuff from their eyes is rubbing their forelegs over them. You might have seen a fly do this before when it lands
- 9:57 am
- Teacherwhat kind of spider is this?
Bugscope Teamnot sure. We aren't very good at figuring out most species unless they have some identifying mark on them, like the black widow. This may be a small wolf spider or just a house spider
- Bugscope Teamnow we are looking at the spider's fangs, where they meet
- Bugscope Teamat the bottom of the image
- Bugscope Teamhelllo Dragonfly!
- Teacher:)
- Teacherthey would like to know if you can train a spider to jump.
Bugscope TeamI am not sure I would want to try. They can do that by themselves, and some of them specialize in jumping
- Bugscope Teamyou might be able to but it could be like teaching a cat to jump. Tarantulas might be easier to try it on since they are bigger
- Bugscope Teamtarantulas are often large and heavy, and if they were to jump and fall they might break open
- Bugscope Teamthis is cool!
- 10:03 am
- Bugscope Teamyou can see one of the spider's claws, and around it you see lots of 'plumose' setae
- Teacherwhere would spiders have claws and what do they use them for?
Bugscope Teamtheir claws are right at the tip of each of their eight legs, and they use them to walk along their webs, for example
- Teacherthat's awesome
- Bugscope Teamspiders can make sticky and nonsticky web, and if they were to get caught in their own web, they could in some cases eat their way out of it
- Bugscope Teamspiders are good recyclers and can eat their webs at the end of an evening
- Bugscope Teamnow you see the honetybee's head, with its mandibles crossed in front of its mouth
- Teacherwhy do they make their webs over each night (orb spiders)
Bugscope Teamwebs can take a beating, from wind and from birds and large insects, and from animals walking into them; they can also get coated with insects, making it easy for other insects to see that they might not want to fly in that direction
- Bugscope Teamoops 'honeybee'
- Teacherlike down syndrome type issues?
- Bugscope Teamsee the compound eyes on either side of the head, and the immense number of hairs (setae) between the eyes?
- 10:08 am
- Teacherdo insects often have genetic abnormalities
Bugscope Teamthey can. There's something they get where their wings aren't well formed
- Bugscope Teamyou can also see that the jaws (mandibles) open from side to side, like a gate
- Bugscope Teamyes there can be a number of genetic abnormalities; chemicals in the air or in water can cause problems with development as well]
- Bugscope Teamapparently it's just called deformed wing virus
- Bugscope Teamthought to be spread from varroa mites
- Bugscope Teamjust this week a number of papers came out about how the DNA we always thought of as dormant actually has specific effects on the DNA that forms genes
- Teacherdo flies clean themselves like other animals do?
Bugscope Teamyes they do!
- Bugscope Teamthis earwig must have been a messy eater
- TeacherHa, we just said he looks like he has a cigar hanging out of his mouth.
- Teacherhow?
Bugscope Teamone thing we see often, of course, is when they use their forelimbs to wipe their faces
- Bugscope Teamants actually have built-in combs on a forelimb joint that they use to clean their antennae
- 10:13 am
- Teacherthat's neat, I never thought about the little setae on the back of the legs as combs
- Bugscope Teamthey really do resemble tiny combs, and they are circular and in halves so that they can close around the antennae
- Bugscope Teamsome of the setae we see on insects are used for proprioception, which is self-sensing
- Bugscope Teamfor example, an insect can sense when a particular limb is overextended when it bends far enough to touch setae around it
- Bugscope Teamdepends on the spider and the conditions it's living in. Like if it's in a home, then the spider might have its web destroyed by humans so it has to keep rebuilding it
- Teacherthey would like to know if you know how many webs a spider might make in its lifetime (on average)
Bugscope Teamwe would say, of course, that it can vary, but if a spider lives two years in a temperate zone or in the tropics, it could make perhaps 700 webs over that time period it can make
- 10:18 am
- Teacherthank you all so much, we have really enjoyed this!
Bugscope TeamThank You!
- Bugscope Teamhttps://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2012-031 is where you can access your chat and images from today
- TeacherWe may try to sign up for a time in the Spring so I can have another class experience it. Thanks again.
- Bugscope TeamPlease be sure to sign up soon for a time that may be months away....
- Bugscope Teamwe have been overwhelmed, at times, with applications
- Bugscope Teamonce you get a time scheduled, we can almost always make modifications to the time and day
- Bugscope Teamit's kind of dim right now but the samples are sitting in the middle
- Bugscope TeamDragonfly are you still on?
- 10:23 am
- GuestI was just peeking. Didn't want to interfere with the class.
Bugscope Teamlet us know if you have questions or would like to drive -- I believe the class is finished
- GuestReally cool stuff!
Bugscope TeamThank You! We are lucky to be able to do this.
- GuestWow!
- GuestI thought the spider claw was really cool!
- Bugscope TeamCate just took us back to the secondary electron detector, and we are looking at a mite on the abdomen of an earwig
- Bugscope Teamif you want, you can change the mag, select from the presets, drive a bit
- GuestI am a naturalist in Indianapolis. What are the hair like projections in between the segments
- Bugscope Teamthey are for feeling movement when the abdomen bends, most likely
- GuestAmazing! Thanks, I will have to check another one of your sessions out. Thank you so much for your time!
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
- Bugscope TeamSee you another time, Dragonfly.
- Bugscope Teamhi skress. we are just now shutting down the session
- 10:28 am
- Bugscope Teamyes skress, we are sorry
- Bugscope Teamfeel free to jump in a future session if you want to see Bugscope in action
Bugscope Teamyes, please
