Connected on 2012-10-22 15:00:00
from Alameda, California, United States
- 1:58 pm
- Bugscope Teamsample is pumping down
- Bugscope Teamalmost there...
- 2:06 pm
- Bugscope Teamone more tenth of a millibar
- 2:11 pm
- 2:17 pm
- Bugscope Teammaking presets now
- 2:22 pm
- 2:28 pm
- 2:33 pm
- 2:45 pm
- Bugscope Teamwe are ready to roll
- 2:52 pm
- 2:57 pm
- Bugscope TeamHello!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- Teachermy students are coming in now. Will take 5 minutes to explain and get on a roll! We will use our 30 minutes wisely for the first session!
- Bugscope Teamtotally cool
- Bugscope Teamthis is a closeup of a fly's head, with its compound eye to the left and the vestiture on the front of the head to the right
- Bugscope Teamit's the other electron microscope that is down now
- Teachergreat samples! Glad the scope is working!
Bugscope TeamThank you. We are happy as well.
- 3:05 pm
- Bugscope Teamnow you can see the fly'
- Bugscope Teams head, most of it
- Bugscope Teamthe pointy things at the top of the head are where part of the antennal structure broke off
- Bugscope Teamthe mouthparts are to the right, in that dark opening between the eyes
- Bugscope Teamthis fly's claws are busted off, at least its foreclaws
- Bugscope Teamflies and all insects as well as most arthropods are covered with small hairs/bristles/spines that are sensory
- Bugscope Teaminsects are invertebrates, meaning that they do not have backbones
- Teacherwe are confused about where the mouth parts are - can you "drive" us there?
Bugscope Teamyes
- 3:11 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is the tongue -- houseflies and lots of other flies have sponging mouthparts
- Bugscope Teambecause it is dry, it is difficult to make out any features, but the rounded part is part of its musculature
- Teacherwhy a sponging mouthpart?
Bugscope Teamthey dissolve food items with their saliva and then sponge them up
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of one of the wasps
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that the wasp has mandibles, like the ants, which they are related to
- Bugscope Teamthe mandibles open side to side rather than up and down like ours
- Bugscope Teamin humans the lower jaw is the mandible and the upper jaw is the maxilla
- Bugscope Teaminsects also have, often, four palps that are accessory mouthparts
- Teacherare the mandibles hard or soft tissue?
Bugscope Teamthey're hard
- Bugscope Teamthe mandibles are made of chitin, and part of the insect's exoskeleton, which is mostly made of chitin
- Bugscope Teamit's like a shrimp shell
- 3:16 pm
- Bugscope Teambecause insects have shells like that -- the exoskeleton is a shell -- they need to have all of the tiny hairs -- the setae -- to sense their environment
- Teacherwhat is the purpose of the holes or pores?
Bugscope Teamthe pores are where hairs come out usually. When hairs aren't coming out, pores are usually for some chemical purpose
- Bugscope Teamthe setae stick through the chitin and connect to nerves underneath
- Bugscope Teamsome of the setae are mechanosensory, some are thermosensory, some are chemosensory, and some serve other purposed
- Bugscope Teampurposes..
- Bugscope Teaminsect scales are modified setae
- Bugscope Teampollen grain to the right, there
- Teacherdo the setae grow back once they break?
Bugscope Teamno. if the insect still has molts left, it can grow back limbs that were previously broken.
- Bugscope Teamit's one of those funny bilobed pollen grains
- Bugscope Teamonce an insect grows wings, that is the end of its molts; it is now an adult
- Bugscope Teamthis is a fly, which wasps and bees are not. flies have two wings and halteres to balance them; wasps, bees, and flying ants (usually the males), have four wings
- 3:21 pm
- TeacherAre these the eyes?
Bugscope Teamthe big round things at the bottom of the image as we see it now
- Bugscope Teamthe part sticking up is the mouth
- Bugscope Teamthose are compound eyes, which have hundreds to thousands of individual facets, or lenses, called ommatidia
- TeacherWhat kind of mouth structures are these?
Bugscope Teamthey're the same as those of the housefly we saw but in better shape
- Bugscope Teamthe palps are busted off, though
- Bugscope Teamthose two holes are where the palps were extended; they were the jointed parts of the palps
- Bugscope Teamthe mass of confusion in the middle of the head here is the mouth
- GuestWhat are palps?
Bugscope Teampalps are accessory mouthparts; usually there are two sets. they help the insect taste (because they have chemosensory setae on them) and manipulate its food
- 3:26 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the grasshopper's claws
- Bugscope Teamgrasshoppers have something called an arolium that helps them stick to surfaces
- Bugscope Teamcompared to the tenent setae that flies and many beetles have
- GuestCan the grasshoppers tear things apart with their claws?
- TeacherWhat is considered the claw? Is it segmented or whole?
Bugscope Teamthe claw is the part at the end that can grab things. the end of the arm is called the tarsus
- TeacherCan we have 10 more mins.?
Bugscope Teamyes you can!
- Bugscope Teamor leg I suppose
- Bugscope Teamthe last five segments of one of the 'arms' or legs are called tarsi, or tarsomeres
- Bugscope Teamthe claws are at the tip of the terminal, or distal, tarsomere
- Bugscope Teamyay so pretty!
- Guestare you able to tell how insects die? like an insect autopsy?
Bugscope Teamwe don't usually, but you have to do it while they are fresh. When they dry out then their insides pretty much become dust when you cut them open
- TeacherWhat are we looking at?
Bugscope Teamthose are setae that are modified with sticky tips that help the fly cling to surfaces
- 3:31 pm
- Teacheris it on the legs or stomach?
Bugscope Teamthe pulvillus, with all of the tenent setae on it, is on the distalmost tarsomere, often near the claws like this
- Bugscope Teamsome beetles, like ladybugs, also have pads of tenent setae, which is what the pulvillus is (a pad) lining the last few tarsi
- Bugscope Teamsome of the bristle-like setae are used for proprioception
- Guestdo all bugs have hair for sensing their environment?
Bugscope TeamI think we could say yes. They may also have sensillae, such as placoid sensillae, that may hold chemoreceptors or surface sensors
- Teacherwe not able to load the cercopods
Bugscope Teamwe cannot do it either, but I can drive the 'scope from here if you want
- Bugscope Teamsometimes the presets do not work, not sure why
- Teacherwe are doing one last image and then logging off - tell us about the haltere
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the long halteres, on the cranefly
- Teacher:O)
- Teacheris it attached to the insect?
- Bugscope Teamhalteres are weighted counterbalances to the motion of the two wings in Diptera -- the flies
- 3:36 pm
- Bugscope Teamthey beat with a motion opposite that of the wings and work kind of like gyroscopes to maintain the fly's equilibrium in the air
- Bugscope Teaminsects with four wings like bees, wasps, and dragonflies do not have halteres
- Bugscope Teamso that means that dragonflies are not Diptera
- Bugscope Teaminsects have all of these sensory setae because unlike us they do not have skin -- it's more like wearing a suit of armor
- Teacherwe are trying to see how high the mag can get
Bugscope Teamit can go over 200,000x but no higher than that for publishable images. here we limit the resolution so we can see more of the insects' bodies at low mag
- GuestDo bugs sleep at night? Where do they sleep?
Bugscope Teamthey don't sleep like us, but they do enter a period of rest like fish, where they can be active and flee at any moment
- Guestdo insects get cold or hot? how does temperature affect them?
Bugscope Teamthey get cold and hot. the tiny setae, called microsetae, may have a partial thermoregulatory effect
- TeacherOk - we are going to log off for now. We will be back at 5:30 pm PST -right?
Bugscope Teamyes 7.5 p.m. our time
- 3:42 pm
- Teachersee youlater! THANKS!!!!
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
- Bugscope Teambye!
- 7:02 pm
- 7:09 pm
- 7:14 pm
- TeacherWe're back :) We will be on at about 5:35 pm (7:35 pm) - students are preparing some questions
- Bugscope Teamtotally cool I am redoing some of the presets
- TeacherI can see that :) Yay!!
- 7:20 pm
- 7:28 pm
- 7:33 pm
- TeacherWe are ready!
- Bugscope Teamcool
- Bugscope TeamChas is here.
- Bugscope Teamour architect
- Bugscope Teamthis is the fly's face
- TeacherHety Chas!!!
- TeacherHey I mean
- Bugscope Teamhe says Hi. He's giving one of his friends a tour, just dropped in.
- Bugscope Teamplease let me know when you have questions
- Bugscope Teamof course
- TeacherWhy do they have hairs?
- Bugscope TeamSEM is the scanning electron microscope we're using, so I have, like deus ex machina -- I can drive the 'scope directly
- TeacherI am going to put my students on the scope now.
- 7:38 pm
- Bugscope Teambecause they have an exoskeleton, like a shell or like a suit of armor, they need to be able to sense the environment.
- Bugscope Teamthe hairs, bristles, spines, are usually called setae
- Bugscope Teamthey can be thermosensory, chemosensory, mechanosensory...
- TeacherWhat is the scale from?
Bugscope Teamit is from a butterfly or moth that was likely collected at the same time as the wasp, or the wasp was fraternizing with a moth
- Bugscope Teambelow it you see another thing I made into a preset -- a strand of fungus that looks like umbrellas stuck into unbrellas
- Bugscope Teamso the setae help insects sense the environment since they usually do not have noses to smell with, nor do they have skin with nerve endings in it...
- TeacherHello, my name is Binh
Bugscope TeamHi Binh!
- Bugscope Teamplease let us know whenever you have questions
- Bugscope Teamwe have been doing this since March 1999
- 7:44 pm
- TeacherThe moth scale is stuck on a yellow jacket's head right?
Bugscope Teamyes it is!
- TeacherWhy is it stuck there and are the hairs sticky?
Bugscope Teamthose hairs are not especially sticky
- Bugscope Teambut there are also sticky hairs called tenent setae
- TeacherWhy are there debris-looking stuff on the yellow jacket's head?
- Bugscope Teamthere is a lot of dirt, and since the wasp is dead so it cannot clean itself
- Bugscope Teambe right back...
- Teacherthanks! we are enjoying...
- 7:49 pm
- Teachercan you explain how ants are able to carry so many things at once - especially things that appear to be qquite heavier than their own weight?
Bugscope Teamtheir bodies are rigid on the outside, with some helpful flexibility, and they have good musculature; they don't think about something being heavy. they have have better innervated muscles than most people do
- Teacherwhy are the antenas hairy?
Bugscope Teamthe hairs are sensory\
- Teacherwhat do they use the antenas for?
Bugscope Teamthey use the antennae to pick up chemical communication
- TeacherWhy is the end part of the antenna different from the beginning part? Do they have a joint like a bone in the middle?
Bugscope Teamthat is how you tell ants from wasps, by that stiff portion of the first part of the antenna out of the head
- Bugscope Teambut they do not have bones -- they are invertebrates, meaning they do not have backbones, but of course they have no bones at all. their shell -- the exoskeleton, is like an outer bony suit of armor
- Guestcan ants see with their eyes? or do they use they antennaes to move around their enveironmentnet?
Bugscope Teamboth. some have very good eyes, and some species do not bother to have eyes. the antennae have more influence on the ant's behavior
- Guesthow many legs does an ant have?
Bugscope Teamall insects have six legs, a head, a thorax, an abdomen, and two antennae
- Teacherdoes their mouth open sideways? or up and down like a human
Bugscope Teamit opens sideways, like a gate opening and closing
- Bugscope Teaminsect mouths can be very complex
- 7:54 pm
- Teacherdo ants have good vision?
Bugscope Teamsome have very good vision, but generally it is not that good
- Guestwhat's the benefit of ants having those types of eyes
Bugscope Teamcompound eyes give you better peripheral vision, and they also allow to register motion more quickly in the very very fast insect world
- Guestwhy do their eyes have such a "bumpy" surface?
Bugscope Teamthe bumps are individual lenses, or facets, called ommatidia
- TeacherDo ants really live in colonies, like in the cartoons?
Bugscope Teamyes they do, and they are almost all females
- Teachercan you show us mouth parts that move sideways?
Bugscope TeamI had driven to that area and then got busy typing
- Bugscope Teamoops
- Guestis the ant's vision small bubble like pictures of what's in front of them or is it one big picture that looks like a grid is over it?
Bugscope Teamit is a series of views of the same things but a little different from each lens
- TeacherWhat is the tubular appendage?
Bugscope Teamthat is a busted antenna shaft
- Guestcan you see the ant's reproductive parts?
Bugscope Teamas with many insects, they are inside where you cannot see them
- Guestso these female ants, can they reproduce like the queen?
- Bugscope Teamstingers are modified ovipositors, so any insect you see with a stinger is also a female
- Guestwe didnt want to sound nasty so we said reprodctive parts but we mean the exterior genetalia
Bugscope Teamno problem -- insects often have only interior genitalia, so you cannot always tell the dfference in sexes
- Teacherwhy do they have longer hairs?
Bugscope Teamthey may help with thermoregulation
- 7:59 pm
- Teacherwhat is a yellow jackets role in the circle of life?
Bugscope Teamthey are pollinators, whether they like it or not, and they also help things decompose, which is super helpful
- Guestso are MOST insects female then?
Bugscope Teamno but things in large colonies like bees, wasps, and ants, which are all related, are often nearly all female
- Bugscope Teamwith earwigs you can tell the males from the females because the male cercopods -- the pincers -- are bowed in males and close together -- more demure -- in females
- TeacherWhat are tarsi?
Bugscope Teamtarsi are the last 5 distalmost segments of the leg, and they are jointed to make them flexible -- the claws are at the tip of the most terminal tarsomere
- Bugscope Teamelected, in a way
- Bugscope Teamwhen a queen is necessary for the survival of a colony, some of the workers than normally mind the eggs, then larvae, will feed larvae more royal jelly and cause a change to occur in those larvae
- 8:05 pm
- Guestvery interesting!
- Guestwhat do you mean by royal Jelly?
Bugscope Teamit is a secretion from the hypopharynx of worker bees, and all bees are fed it but greater quantities can elicit a change in the genes that will cause a larvae to grow into a prospective queen
- GuestHow?
Bugscope Teamby the death or loss of the queen; bees are kind of programmed to know what to do
- Guestwhy do ants have less lenses in their eye than the fly?
Bugscope Teamfor one, they usually do noty fly, whereas flies do. flying insects almost always have much more complex eyes. some wasps can have as many as 17,000 ommatidia per compound eye
- Guestso does the queen die of reproducing too much, old age, or some other reason?
Bugscope Teamsome will die of old age, yes; I think they live around 4 years but I'm not sure where I read that
- Guestcan you drive and show us the hypopharynx of a bee, so we can see where the secretion comes from?
Bugscope Teamit's on the inside of the worker bee's mouth
- Guestcan you drive and show us the hypopharynx of a bee, so we can see where the secretion comes from?
Bugscope Teamit would come out of the mouth
- Bugscope Teamoh also, many flying insects have three more eyes, simple eyes, on the top of the head, called ocelli
- TeacherIf you can show us a hypopharynx, that would be great. If not - OK :)
Bugscope Teamhaha it is on the inside of the head, like in the throat
- 8:10 pm
- Teacheroh
- Teachernevermind
- Teacher:)
- TeacherThis will be our last question before logging off :)
Bugscope Teamguess you will have to ask another question since I cannot help with that one
- Bugscope Teamsome insects can also see, with their compound eyes, ultraviolet wavelengths of light that come from flowers
- TeacherHOw was pilates?
Bugscope Teamhaha It was really good. I like it when I'm done and walking down the street and I feel taller
- Teacherwell done!
- Bugscope Teamwe cannot see UV light; we need blacklights to let us see that kind of light
- Bugscope Teamwhat is cool is that I got the TEM chiller up and running this evening so the TEM is back online
- Bugscope TeamTEM is how you see mitochondria, etc.
- Teacherthat is exciting!
- TeacherWell - go home and relax - we are signing off now :) Talk to you soon! THANK YOU!!
Bugscope TeamThank YOU!
- Bugscope Teamhave a good evening
- Teacherbye now
- Bugscope TeamBye!
