Connected on 2012-10-12 14:00:00
from El Paso, Colorado, United States
- 12:54 pm
- Bugscope TeamHi Mr D!
- Bugscope Teamsample is in 'scope and pumping down
- Bugscope Teamthis is a CCD camera view of the vacuum chamber
- 1:20 pm
- Bugscope Teamnow we're making presets for today's session
- 1:26 pm
- 1:34 pm
- 1:41 pm
- 1:47 pm
- Bugscope Teamhello!
- TeacherHello, we are here!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome back to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Teamthis is a mite on a female earwig, in the 'shoulder' region
- TeacherWhat is that showing now?
- Bugscope Teamthat is a mite on the earwig
- 1:53 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis one is totally mangled
- TeacherAre those pinchers?
Bugscope Teamyes those are called cercopods, also
- Bugscope Teamthose of the males are curved, and those of females are relatively straight
- TeacherWhat type of spider?
Bugscope Teamthis is one you sent, maybe a wolf spider?
- Bugscope Teamit's a boy
- TeacherWhat is sticking out from the hairs?
- TeacherLadybug?
Bugscope Teamclose!
- 1:58 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is a Japanese beetle
- Bugscope Teamyou can compare it to the ladybug, which is among the presets
- Bugscope Teamwould you like to drive now?
- TeacherSure, what do we do?
- Bugscope Teamyou can click on any of the presets on the lefthand screen, and the 'scope will drive to that place
- Bugscope Teamyou can also change the mag, focus, contrast/brightness, and use click to center on the image to actually drive
- Bugscope Teamit looks like the 'net is slow...
- 2:03 pm
- Bugscope TeamI'm going to stop and start the server in a minute; it should not cause a problem for you
- TeacherWhat are we looking at?
Bugscope Teamthis is one of the lamellar antennae -- the lobed antenna -- on the Japanese beetle
- Bugscope Teamthe lamellae can fold open like a fan
- Bugscope Teammost of the placoid sensilla we barely see, in that crack, are likely chemosensory
- Bugscope Teamsensillae..
- TeacherWe can't seem to get another picture
Bugscope Teamha yeah I couldn't either
- 2:08 pm
- Bugscope TeamI think it will work now.
- TeacherAnt?
- Bugscope Teamyes this is a nice one you sent
- Bugscope Teamyou can see its antennae, its mandibles, some tarsi, and the compound eye on one side
- TeacherIs it the red ant?
Bugscope Teamyes it is!
- Bugscope TeamGreg please try driving now, or changing mag or something.
- Bugscope Teamalmost every ant we see is female
- Bugscope Teamwhen we see an ant with wings it is either a queen or a male
- Bugscope Teamwhoops I just messed you up
- Bugscope Teamthese are scales from the hawk moth
- Bugscope Teambutterflies, moths, mosquitoes, silverfish, and very few other insects have scales
- Bugscope Teamscales provide color, both from pigment and from their structure
- Bugscope Teamscales also seem to function like feathers do for a bird
- Bugscope Teamand one important thing they do is fall out fairly easily, so if the insect flies into a web, it can leave its scales and slip out, sometimes
- 2:13 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is the other spider you sent
- Teacherspider?
Bugscope Teamyes it is!
- Bugscope Teamyou can see its fangs, in the middle
- Bugscope Teamthey are sort of facing each other, and they come out of the long chelicers, or chelicerae
- Teacherkind?
Bugscope TeamI am sorry I am not good with spider ID. It's probably a house spider.
- Bugscope Teamwhen we get spiders, because they have soft bodies, they are often shriveled, and it is hard to ID them
- Bugscope Teamthis is a true bug -- a hemipteran
- Bugscope Teamits antennae and its legs broke off
- Teacherwhat is the hole?
- Bugscope Teambut you can see its proboscis -- its piercing/sucking mouthparts that are one sign that it is a hemipteran
- Bugscope Teamon either side of the proboscis we see holes where the antennae had broken off
- Bugscope Teamyou can also see, very well, the compound eyes
- 2:18 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe individual facets of the compound eyes are called ommatidia
- Bugscope Teameach is an individual lens
- Bugscope Teambecause of their dome-like shape, the bug can see a lot of the area around it at one time, without moving its head
- Teacherpalp?
Bugscope Teamyes!
- Bugscope Teamyes that is a ladybug palp
- Bugscope Teamlike a vacuum cleaner nozzle
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the ladybug's compound eye to the left
- Teacherwhat is a palp?
Bugscope Teama palp is an accessory mouthpart, like a feeler, that helps the insect taste and also manipulate its food
- Bugscope Teamthere are mandibular and maxillary palps
- Teacherhow old are these
- Bugscope Teamthe moths?
- 2:24 pm
- Teacheryes
- Bugscope Teamthis is likely 5 or 6 weeks old
- TeacherIs this the powdery stuff that comes off their wings when you touch them?
- Bugscope Teamwe are looking at a single scale -- scales are what seem like powder to us when we stroke a moth's wing
- Bugscope Teamthe scales often have pigment in those little holes in the lattice
- Bugscope Teamthe shape of the lattice, with its ridges and crossbars, refracts light in different colors
- Bugscope Teamah ha!
- Bugscope Teamthis I believe is also a male spider
- Bugscope Teamspiders have something called palps as well -- pedipalps
- Bugscope Teamthe males have swollen palps that look like boxing gloves, whereas those of females are smaller and not as bulbous
- Bugscope Teamfemale spiders are often larger, however; sometimes much larger
- 2:30 pm
- Bugscope Teamwhen a male spider wants to get close to a female spider, sometimes it wads up some web and places it right over the division between the two chelicerae so the female cannot spread her fangs and bite
- Teacherwhat kind
Bugscope Teamthis is a small house spider
- Teacherhow old is it?
- Bugscope Teamthis one is probably a month old
- Bugscope Teamspiders can go for a long time without eating
- Bugscope Teamwhen they do eat, they use their fangs to inject venom into their prey. the venom dissolves the inner organs of the prey, and the spider sucks it all up like a milkshake
- Bugscope Teamthese little sharp things are kind of like a soft brush -- they are part of the pulvillus of the ladybug and help the ladybug cling to surfaces -- like walls and ceilings
- Teacherwhat is this?
- Bugscope Teamthose are tenent setae
- Bugscope Teamsetae are what we call hairs in the insect world
- Bugscope Teamand tenent means, from Latin tenir, or like Spanish tener, to hold
- Bugscope Teamif you take the mag down you can see where we are now
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the antennae from the hawk moth you sent
- Bugscope TeamI believe, because it is ornate, this is a male moth
- 2:35 pm
- Bugscope Teamfemale moths and also mosquitoes have less fancy antennae
- Bugscope Teammales have ornate/fancy antennae because they often need more chemosensory setae or sensillae in order to follow the pheromone trails of the females
- Teacherwhy is the top different?
Bugscope Teamit just has scales on it; that is I believe the back side of the antenna, and the side with the sensory setae is the front
- Bugscope Teamone of the primary purposes of scales, according the entomologists, is to protect their bearer from getting caught in a spider web
- Bugscope Teamso the scales would be on an outer-facing surface of the antennae
- Bugscope Teamthis is really cool
- Bugscope Teamit is a bit hard to see, but each of the claws, on either side, has two tips
- Bugscope Teamthat is, it helps the moth cling to surfaces
- 2:40 pm
- Bugscope Teamall of the 'shingles' in the background are scales
- Bugscope Teamthis is a mite, living on the body of an earwig
- Bugscope Teamthe mite is quite small, maybe 250 micrometers long, which is a quarter of a millimeter
- Bugscope Teambecause I am sitting at the microscope -- the SEM -- I can drive a bit for us
- Teacherhard shell?
Bugscope Teamit is fairly hard -- it is probably made of chitin like the cuticle of an insect or like the elytra -- the shell -- of a ladybug
- Bugscope Teamwe are looking at the legs/arms, and the head is there too but we cannot identify it clearly
- 2:45 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is 5000 times magnified
- Bugscope Teamnow 10,000x
- Bugscope Teamwith a light microscope, generally you cannot go above 1250x
- Bugscope Teamthe mite has long legs with sucker feet at the ends
- Bugscope Teamthe thing that looks like a leaf is one of those feet
- Teacherscales/
Bugscope Teamyes the foot looks very much like a moth or butterfly scale
- Bugscope Teamthis is 20,000 times magnified
- Bugscope Teamthis is the small moth you had sent that looked like it was camoflaged in green and gray
- Bugscope Teamyou can see its compound eyes, and it is covered with scales, almost like it has a fur coat
- Bugscope Teamin the center we see its tongue -- its proboscis -- which is coiled up when it is not being used
- 2:50 pm
- Bugscope Teammoths and butterflies have coiled tongues like this that they can extend to reach deep into flowers to get the nectar
- Bugscope Teammoths can often see in the ultraviolet wavelengths of light. they can see things we do not see unless we are using a blacklight.
- Bugscope Teamflowers can have colors that are in the ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths to attract insects that can see in those wavelengths
- Bugscope Teamwhen the flowers attract insects, the insects pick up pollen and move it to other flowers so that cross-pollination occurs
- Teacher is a proboscus made out of the same material as ours?
Bugscope Team
Bugscope Teamoops
Bugscope Teamit is made of chitin, the same as what the exoskeleton of the insect is made of, or like a shrimp shell. our fingernails are made of something similar
- TeacherWe have to go now, thank you so much!
- Bugscope Teamawwww...
- Bugscope Teamhttps://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2012-062
- Bugscope TeamThank you for connecting with us today!
