Connected on 2013-05-22 13:00:00
from Portage, Wisconsin, United States
- 12:31 pm
- Bugscope Teamsample is pumping down
Bugscope Teamhello!
- 12:38 pm
- 12:44 pm
- 12:49 pm
- 12:55 pm
- StudentWe are signed in all together
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- StudentThank you!
- Bugscope TeamCate is finding us just a few more cool places
- Bugscope Teamwe still have a butterfly wing and a cranefly to find for you
- Bugscope Teamthen we can give you control
- StudentSounds good...we are enjoying the images so far.
- Bugscope Teamthat was from a butterfly with orange wings with large silver areas
- 1:00 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is the crane fly
- Bugscope Teamback to the wing...
- Bugscope Teamalright we are ready!
- Bugscope TeamI gave Saints control of the microscope
- Bugscope TeamCate is going up to her office and will log in in a minute
- StudentAlright we are going to start with the fly claw
- Bugscope Teamso please let us know when you have questions
- Bugscope Teamwould you prefer that Saint had control?
- Bugscope Teamrather than Saints?
- StudentSaints is fine....it is the whole class
- Bugscope Teamthe person on the Saints computer can click on any one of the presets to drive the 'scope to that place on the stub
- 1:06 pm
- Bugscope Teamif for some reason that is not working we can click on it for you
- StudentI'm actually logged in as both, right now SAINT is the one that I'm typing under. Sorry for the confusion
- Bugscope Teamokay I gave control to Saint, so you can drive from there
- Bugscope Teamhuh there is some extra stuff on the claw (looks like a moustache) to the right
- StudentAre those things sticking out like hairs?
Bugscope Teamyes they are! On insects we call hairs setae
- 1:11 pm
- Bugscope Teamthey use the hairs to help them sense what is going on around them
- Bugscope Teamthey can't feel things through their exoskeleton like we can with our skin. Their exoskeleton is like a suit of armor
- Bugscope Teamthis is a wild-looking beetle
- Bugscope Teamit has a flat head like a silverfish
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that it has one lamellated antenna on the left side there
- Studentwhat does lamellated mean?
- Bugscope Teamit means it's like a stack of plates
- 1:16 pm
- StudentIs that object more pollen?
Bugscope Teamno that is a piece of junk debris, like a piece of dirt or a clod of plant fibers
- Bugscope Teamthese are called placoid sensillae, which means they are sensory, and they are plate-like
- Bugscope Teamthe sensillae are most likely chemosensory -- they give the wasp the ability to smell or taste the air
- Bugscope Teamso cute!
- 1:21 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is a parasitoid wasp
- Bugscope Teamthey lay eggs in caterpillars
- StudentAre the little holes like nostrils?
Bugscope Teamthe little holes are called 'anterior tentorial pits,' and they extend into the head but do not have an opening inside the head. They are supports for the head, to help it keep its shape.
- Bugscope Teamthey are kind of like 'sprues' in sculpture
- Bugscope Teamthe wasp has jaws (mandibles) that open side to side like a gate
- Bugscope Teambecause its head is tipped forward it is hard to make out the jaws
- Bugscope Teamcool!
- 1:26 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is a male housefly\
- Studenthow do you tell the difference
- Bugscope Teamin male flies, the eyes are often close together, whereas with females they are far apart\
- Bugscope Teamso the males are like Mikhail Baryshnikov, and the females are like Uma Thurman.
- Bugscope Teamwe see see three ocelli, or simple eyes, on top of the head'
- StudentIs that "hole" in his eye, debris?
- Bugscope Teamit might be
- Bugscope Teamyou found pollen grains!
- Bugscope Teamsuper cool
- 1:31 pm
- Bugscope Teamwow that piece of fungus jumped up onto the pollen
- StudentWould that wash off when it gets wet or eventually fall off?
Bugscope Teamit might fall off. Usually when the fly lands it will rub its arms over its head to clean its eyes and antennae
- StudentWe were wondering what that was...
- Bugscope Teamthis is what a palp -- an accessory mouthpart -- looks like up close
- Bugscope Teamthese are kind of like tastebuds, on your tongue
- StudentDo most insects have these?
- Bugscope Teamwe see them on most beetles, and there is certainly something similar on most insects
- Bugscope Teamthis is the eye of the rolypoly
- Bugscope Teamcompound eye
- Bugscope Teamit has very few facets
- Bugscope Teamprobably cannot see well at all
- Bugscope Teamit is also covered with fungus -- with fungal hyphae, which is what the strands are called
- 1:37 pm
- Bugscope Teamrolypolies are called 'isopods.' iso, like in an isosceles triangle, means 'the same.'
- Bugscope Teamand 'pod' means foot
- StudentThe legs look a crab with all the different parts...
Bugscope Teamyou are right! rolypolies are actually crustaceans
- StudentWhy does it appear to have more than 6 legs?
Bugscope Teamrolypolys are not insects, so they have more than 6 legs
- Bugscope TeamI think they usually have 7 or 9 pairs of legs
- Bugscope Team7 I believe
- Bugscope Teamthis is really cool
- Bugscope Teampollen!
- 1:43 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis ant has more ommatidia (eye facets) than the rolypoly!
- Bugscope Teamants are related to wasps and bees
- Studentwhat is the shaded area?
Bugscope Teamthe darker areas have some kind of film on them, stuck to the very fine hairs (microsetae)
- Bugscope Teamthis is a beetle
- Bugscope Teamyou can see on the far right, top corner, one of the same palps we saw earlier up close
- 1:48 pm
- Bugscope Teamsee the furry parts of the leg?
- Bugscope Teamtenent setae help the insect to stick to vertical surfaces
- Bugscope Teamlike velcro
- Bugscope Teamthe final five segments of the leg are called tarsi, or tarsomeres
- Bugscope Teamsome beetles cannot climb on walls, but this one can
- Bugscope Teamnot like we do, but they might lost some in their short lifespan.
- StudentDo they lose hairs like we do?
Bugscope Teamthey can lose hairs like us, but they do not grow them back
- Bugscope Teamnot exactly like we do, as Cate said
- Bugscope Teamthese are also setae, but they are modified into these flat shapes like little boogie boards, or like shingles on a house
- Bugscope Teamand this is the head of a cranefly
- 1:53 pm
- Bugscope TeamI broke a couple of legs off so we could could see the head better
- StudentSo the legs are hollow?
- Bugscope Teamyes the legs are mostly hollow when we see them
- Bugscope Teamthere would normally be hemolymph, which is bug blood
- Bugscope Teamalso little tendon structures would be there, which help with moving the legs
- Bugscope Teamwhen insects die, the hemolymph goes away, and the tendons constrict, which is actually why insects pull their legs up when they die
- StudentWhat "color" would bug blood be?
Bugscope Teamhemolymph is usually clear, but when you squish an insect sometimes you also get the contents of its gut, which are yellow
- Bugscope Teamor often, they are yellow
- Bugscope Teamor green
- 1:58 pm
- Bugscope Teamhere we can see the mandibles, which open side to side, and four palps, and also the frons, which is the top plate of the mouth
- Bugscope Teamthe pulvillus is the part with the sticky hairs, called tenent setae
- Bugscope Teamit is almost right in the center
- StudentWhat is the pulvillus
Bugscope Teamit's the pad of 'fur' before the claw
- Bugscope Teamthere, the sideways moustache is the pulvillus
- StudentThat is probably sticky too?
- Bugscope Teamyes it is!
- StudentTHANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!
- Bugscope Teamit's cool it is so flat, like a brush, and that is how it sticks to flat surfaces like glass
- Bugscope TeamThank You, Everyone!
- Bugscope Teamthank you!
- 2:04 pm
- Bugscope TeamSM if you are still listening, please let us know if you have any questions
- GuestThank you. We will be working with you next Wed. and sorry not to have sent things like pollen and seeds and such dilapidated bug samples. We'd LOVE to see some that you have in house such as the scales of butterfly wings, Mosquito Probiscii?, and lots of toenails!
Bugscope Teamwe will provide whatever we have, almost always something fun
- GuestDo you have spider webs?
Bugscope Teamwe can see spider web right now...
- Bugscope Teamit is often not so interesting
- Bugscope Teamoh SM I just gave you control
- GuestThe grade school kids must be so much fun to work with! Do you have Lyme ticks with Spirochetes?
- GuestHow do I zoom?
- 2:10 pm
- Bugscope TeamI've never seen spirochetes on ticks before. We see bacilli.
- Bugscope Teamyou can click + or - on the top of the screen -- I think you figured it out...
- Bugscope Teamyou can also click on any of the presets to get the 'scope to drive to that place
- GuestIs the lower section an eye structure?
- Bugscope Teamthere is an eye in the image, but the lower portion is just part of the cuticle
- Bugscope TeamSM what we do is use whatever we get, and it is hard to keep stock of anything
- Bugscope Teamso we do not often have ticks or things like bedbugs
- Bugscope Teamwe can only use a given sample once
- GuestDo you want me to find some of those for you? How about lice?
- Bugscope Teamwe would love to have ticks or lice or fleas or bedbugs or mosquitoes...
- 2:15 pm
- GuestWhen you were helping develop the camera did you wear special lenses?
Bugscope Teamhaha You mean for this? No...
- Bugscope Teamthis dude is covered with mold
- GuestI guess these are the fungal threads....
- Bugscope Teamyes they are -- hyphae
- Bugscope Teamsometimes we get insects/arthropods that are in poor shape, but there is often something we can image
- Bugscope Teamearwigs are super cool because they often have mites
- GuestI'd gotten some faceted lenses so that the kids could See how an insect 'sees'. but the facets were flat. I'm sorry about our specimen. I had put some in vinegar before the alcohol- No experts here!
- Bugscope Teamdustmites, however, are softbodied, like aphids, and they shrivel up so badly you cannot recognize them
- GuestOne of the undecipherable things sent was a spider egg sac.
- Bugscope TeamI tell people they can send us 'bugs' in vodka if they want, and we will change to better alcohol and critical point dry them
- GuestI was just reading about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjzs3V7rnBk and http://www.newstimes.com/news/science/article/Thailand-urged-to-explore-edible-insect-market-4534036.php
- Bugscope Teamwe cannot tell if our own seemingly perfect samples are actually going to be good until we see them up close
- 2:20 pm
- Bugscope TeamI think it's going to be a while before I start eating insects.
- Bugscope Teamfly ommatidia with mechanosensory setae on them
- GuestThere will be some children from a Thai school as guests next week.
- GuestWhy does the fly need setae on their eye?
- Bugscope Teamthat's right!
- Bugscope Teamthe setae help give the fly information about wind speed and direction
- GuestDo they 'feel' with their eyes?
Bugscope Teamyes they do!
- Bugscope Teaminsects and other similar arthropods have an exoskeleton, so they need to have setae sticking through that 'armor' to allow them to sense their environment
- 2:25 pm
- GuestVery cool! Do they have altimeters, too?
Bugscope TeamI don't think they have altimeters, but they can sense hot/cold as well as wind, and they are quite sensitive to chemical scents in the air; they know where they should be in order to live, feed, breed
- GuestThank you! I wonder what their chemical sensors look like. Do you ever image molluscs?
- GuestDo you have a dragonfly you can show us on Wednesday? (sorry for so many questions - seemingly random)
- Bugscope Teamthe chemical sensors, some of them, look like hairs, or tastebuds, as today; also, some of them are placoid -- flat disclike areas
- Bugscope Teamwe have not imaged molluscs that I recall
- Bugscope TeamI don't think we have any dragonflies right now
- Bugscope Teamoops lost that palp
- Bugscope Teamdandelion seed
- GuestThank you very, very much! You are very patient
- Bugscope Teamthat is one of the screws on the microscope stage
- 2:30 pm
- Bugscope Teamyou know we are super lucky to have a good-sized lab full of equipment like this. so it is great to be able to kind of share it/
- Bugscope TeamI'll have to shut down now so I can make a few changes for the researchers who are coming in.
- GuestI can't even begin to imagine how much power/electricity/and equipment costs!
- Bugscope TeamBut we look forward to seeing you online next week.
- GuestBye! for now...
- Bugscope TeamBye!
- Bugscope TeamThank you!