Connected on 2014-01-27 15:00:00
from Alameda County, California, United States
- 2:00 pm
- Bugscope Teamsample is in 'scope and we are pumping down
- Bugscope Teamwaiting for the vacuum to get better
- Bugscope Team1.6...
- Bugscope Teamgoing for 1.3
- Bugscope Team1.4
- 2:09 pm
- 2:18 pm
- 2:23 pm
- 2:28 pm
- 2:35 pm
- 2:41 pm
- 2:46 pm
- 2:51 pm
- Bugscope TeamJoe!
- 2:57 pm
- Bugscope Teamhey
- Bugscope Teamdoes this look familiar?
- Bugscope Teamit's one of those professional thoraxes
- Bugscope Teamha! somewhat
- Bugscope Teamthat is really similar to the cerambycid pheromone gland pores
- TeacherHi all- just getting my students set for the session- will be interacting in about 10-15 min.
- Bugscope Teamwe are ready to roll
- Bugscope Teamcucumber beetles and cerambycids are fairly closely related
- 3:02 pm
- Bugscope Teamah. I thought we'd just found the unifying theory of all entomology
- Bugscope Teamhaha that would have been sweet
- Bugscope Teamoh well
- 3:12 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is the compound eye of the fruit fly
- Bugscope Teamthe spikes are setae, or bug hairs
- Bugscope Teamthe hexagonal things are the ommatidia
- Bugscope Teamcompound eyes allow insects/arthropods to see more at once; they give them better peripheral vision
- Bugscope Teamcompound eyes are often domelike, and they can extend almost all of the way around the head of some insects
- TeacherCan you describe what we are seeing here?
Bugscope Teamthese are the individual ommatidia (facets) of the fruit fly's compound eye
Bugscope Teameach of these facets help contribute to the overall image, this creates an image that resembles a mosaic
- Bugscope Teamalso, they update very quickly, so they enable insects to see when something is coming after them
- Bugscope Teamthey update quickly in the fruitfly's brain, for example, most of which is devoted to visual processing
- Bugscope Teamdepending on whether the insect is nocturnal or diurnal, the internal areas of the ommatidia are set up differently
Bugscope Teamnocturnal insects have a setup where light gathered from neighboring ommatidia also bleeds slightly through
- 3:17 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe bristles, or setae, we see here help the fruitfly sense wind speed and direction
Bugscope Teammost insects have many of these sensing setae all over their bodies
- Bugscope TeamJoseph is an entomologist, so he is our expert.
Bugscope Team"expert", both Scott and Cate have done this long enough that they know as much if not more than I do.
- Bugscope Teammany flying insects can see in the ultraviolet wavelengths of light, which we cannot
Bugscope Teamin exchange, many don't see wavelengths of light in the red part of the spectrum.
- Bugscope Teamwith Monatrch butterflies, the males and the females look similar. The patterns on males' wings are finer, and they have a spot not seen on female wings.
- TeacherSorry we are so slow = we are ready to roll now. Thanks for all the information.
- Bugscope Teambut to other butterflies, the colors of the wings look quite different, because they can see in UV, and the wings have distinctly different colors in UV.yl
- 3:23 pm
- Bugscope Teamthere is a pulvillus here, the pad of fur under the claw, the helps the insect stick to vertical surfaces
- TeacherWhat is this???
Bugscope Teamthe is the distal end of a leg on a beetle, at the top is the tarsal claw
- Bugscope Teamthe little hairs on the pulvillus are called tenent setae
- Bugscope Teamthe thickened covering over the wings is called the elytra
- Bugscope Teamto the left you could see a ladybug larva
- Bugscope Teaminsects all have, as adults, a head, a thorax, an abdomen, two antennae, and six legs
Bugscope Teammost have two pairs of wings, flies are an exception, and the beetles' forewings have been modified into a hard shell that acts as an air foil of sorts
Bugscope Teamflies have only one pair of wings, the second pair have been modified into something called halteres, which help with orientation and balancing during flight
Bugscope Teamstrepsipterans also have halteres, but it's their forewings that have been modified instead of the hind wings like in flies
- Bugscope Teaminsect claws often have only two 'tines'
- Bugscope Teamand some can open and close
- 3:28 pm
- Bugscope Teamthere is a tendon called an unguitractor that allows the claws to open and close
- Teacheri am inviting students to run the scope now.
- Bugscope Teamsuper cool
- Bugscope Teamthis is a fly's tongue; we have to remind ourselves that it is dried out, a bit
- Guestcolorblind
- Bugscope Teamhaha I crashed out of the software as Scot
- TeacherDo flies have tastebuds?
Bugscope Teamyes they do, and often they have them, as other insects do, on other parts of the bnod
Bugscope Teamsome butterflies and moths have taste receptors on their feet
- Teacheris this the fly's head or just the tongue?
Bugscope Teamthis is the proboscis, the extension of the mouth
Bugscope Teamthe head is above
- 3:33 pm
- TeacherCan you show us the fly and then where the tongue is located? Not sure how to navigate that
Bugscope Teamlot easier for me, sitting at the microscope
- Bugscope Teamthe semi circle dome is the head, the compound eye is slightly above the center of the image
- Bugscope Teamthis fly was in a bowl with a lot of other insects, so it has moth scales and other debris all over it
- Bugscope Teamthis is the compound eye
- Bugscope Teamif you see a palm frond in a painting of a saint, it is a sign of martyrdom
- TeacherDo they see well at night?
Bugscope Teamsome insects do, like moths, and some do not
- Bugscope Teammonster
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of a cranefly, one of those lumbering insects that looks like a big mosquito
- Teacheris this the head
Bugscope Teamyes it is!
- Guestare flies coloblind?
Bugscope Teamthey have colors they can see and colors they cannot
Bugscope Teamthis applies to most insects. For instance, bees don't see red, but they see in UV.
- 3:38 pm
- Bugscope Teamsome of the ommatidia are sunken in
- Teacherwhat is ommatidia?
Bugscope Teamthat is the name for the facets of the compound eye. singular is ommatidium
Bugscope Teamsimple eyes are called ocelli
Bugscope Teamand simple eyes in larvae are called stemmata
- Teacheris there vision multiple images or just one?
Bugscope TeamI think it is assembled into a whole image by the brain
Bugscope Teamyup, it's akin to a low resolution image on the computer, pixellated
- Teacherwhat causes the ommatidia to sink? on the last fly we noticed that they weren't sunken in.
Bugscope Teamit's just that they get dry and shrivel up
- GuestWhat kind of a test do you run to determine what colors they can see?
- Bugscope Teamwe may see the best ommatidia on the moth compound eyes, if they do not charge up with electrons
- 3:44 pm
- TeacherCan we see the whole fly?
Bugscope Teamno I am sorry -- the 'scope is at 40x right now, so the only whole insects we can see are quite small
- Bugscope Teamthe wings are missing; it is kind of a mess
- Bugscope Teamthis one is missing most of its legs
Bugscope Team
- Bugscope Teamhere is one of the halteres, and the thoracic spiracle
- Bugscope Teamthat weird extended bulb is the haltere
- Teacherdo you guys have any ants that we can examine?
Bugscope Teamnot today, I'm sorry
- Bugscope Teamthe stub is 1.75 inches in diameter...
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that this stub is, uh, split level
- Bugscope Teamspider setae
- Guestneat-o !
Bugscope Teamthat was a CCD (infrared camera) view of the inside of the vacuum chamber, showing the stub the critters are mounted on
- GuestAre those hairs? And if so, what purpose do they serve?
- Guesthow many legs and how many eyes does this spider have?
Bugscope Teamif it was intact it would have eight legs, probably eight eyes, two palps we can see now, two chelicers, or chelicerae, and two fangs
- 3:49 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe palps (pedipalps) of male spiders are often large and bulbous, like oversized boxing gloves
- Teacherare those the legs?
Bugscope Teamto the left are the pedipalps, and to the right we see the bases of the legs, which Cate probably tore off.
- Bugscope Teamspiders can sense when venom, like from another spider, from a bite, is entering their body
- Teacherwhat are the parts of the spider?
- Bugscope Teamif a leg was bitten by another spider, and venom is entering that leg, the spider can do this thing called autotomy, which means it can jettison that leg, just make it fall off
- GuestHow did you test the spider to know that a spider can sense venom?
Bugscope Teamapparently people have tested that and reported those results; we have not
- Guestafter autotomy can the spider grow its leg back?
Bugscope Teamnot unless it has more molts in its lifetime. Only spiders that live a long life like tarantulas can do this
- TeacherWe are a new group of students. I was wondering if you could locate a fly's antennae for me
Bugscope Teamhere are the two portions of the fly's antenna
- Teacherwhat are the two portions?
- Bugscope Teamthe thin part is called the arista, or it is called the aristate portion of the antenna -- the branched, thin part
- 3:55 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe other part is sometimes called the pedicel.
- TeacherThis is the best!
- TeacherThe bomb.com
- Bugscope Teamit's the pill-like part with the 'fur' on it, and inside is the Johnston's Organ.
- Bugscope Teamthe Johnston's Organ can sense the vibrations of another fly's wings
- TeacherDo they serve different functions?
Bugscope Teamyes
- Bugscope TeamI am not clear on exactically what each part does and does not do, except that the pedicel portion houses the Johnston's Organ
- TeacherFrom how far away? Is it covered with even tinier hairs?
Bugscope Teamnot sure what the distance would be
- Bugscope Teamso yeah, this is the pedicel, with microsetae on it
- Bugscope Teamyou guys we are going to have to wrap up soon, I am sorry
- TeacherAre a fly's hairs made of the same proteins as a human's hair?
Bugscope Teamthey are made of chitin, which is more like our fingernails
- 4:00 pm
- Bugscope Teamthese are plumose setae on the spider
- Bugscope Teamthey're like pine trees, kind of
- TeacherCan you show us the eyes?
Bugscope Teamno I am sorry -- they are on the other side of the head
- Bugscope Teamif you do not get to see certain things today, you can go to google and type Bugscope spider eyes
- TeacherCan you find us some eyes on whatever slide you have of a spider?
Bugscope Teamthe samples are mounted on an aluminum stub, coated with gold-palldium, and they're inside the vacuum chamber, so we cannot, for example, swap out a sample
- TeacherD you have the fangs?
Bugscope Teamthey are, unfortunately, out of view to the upper left
- Bugscope Teamnot much left of teh spider, but that is what they are like, often difficult to predict what they will look like
- Bugscope Team'the spider'
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the abdomen, to the lower left
- Bugscope Teamthese are the spinnerets
- Bugscope Teamwhere the wweb comes from
- 4:05 pm
- Bugscope TeamI am sorry -- I am going to have to give the microscope up this afternoon.
- Bugscope Teamyes we need to shut down...
- TeacherWe are going to sign out - just checking on looking at images of ants - if we google Bugscope and ants, we will see images from other Bugscope sessions?
- TeacherOK- we will sign off :0 THANKS!!! Talk to you soon.
- Bugscope Teamwe have to go, I am so sorry...
