Connected on 2014-02-27 15:00:00
from Clark County, Washington, United States
- 2:06 pm
- Bugscope Teampumping the vacuum down now
- Bugscope Teamalmost there. then i will start makng presets
- 2:11 pm
- 2:17 pm
- 2:23 pm
- 2:30 pm
- Bugscope Teamthere's a bit of mold on these samples. probably mostly my fault for not taking them out of the containers sooner
- 2:35 pm
- Bugscope Teampresets are done!
- 2:50 pm
- Bugscope Teamhello!
- Bugscope Teamwelcome to bugscope
- TeacherHello! We are waiting for more of our small class to arrive.
- Bugscope Teamnot a problem
- 2:59 pm
- TeacherWe are here and are ready to start.
- Bugscope Teamhi everyone!
- Bugscope Teamhello
- Bugscope Teami have all the insects you sent inside the microscope for today as well as a few bonus insects
- TeacherStudent: I wanted to know why color is an issue with this microscope.
Bugscope Teamwe are using electrons to image and not light. electrons can see details as small as 2 nanometers. light is restricted to resolutions half their wavelengths (their wavelengths being around 400-700 nanometers)
- Bugscope Teamthe electron images you might see in textbooks or in terminex/orkin commercials had color falsely added to them
- 3:05 pm
- TeacherStudent: On average, how many facets are on this insect's eyes?
Bugscope Teamthis varies quite a bit, it can go from just 7-8 in some ants and insects that don't use their vision much, to 30000 in dragonflies.
- Teacherstudent: is this a beetle??
- TeacherIs this a hornet or fly?
Bugscope Teamit looks more like a beetle.
- TeacherStudent: could you show us the ear?
- Teacherstudent: is this a beetle??
Bugscope Teamyes this is a beetle. it's a female ship timber beetle i believe.
Bugscope Teamthey lay eggs into wood, and they larvae (their young) feed inside of trees
- Bugscope Teamwhat you are looking at here is an insect head, you're looking at it straight on, so it's mouth is directly center of the screen
Bugscope Teamits mandibles are the two sort of triangular pieces, the antennae are the two whip like things on the sides
Bugscope Teamthe eyes are behind all of this, the bumpy surface you see, that is all compound eyes, one on each side.
- Bugscope Teamsome aquatic insects will also have gills
- Teacherstudent: what is its family?
- 3:10 pm
- Bugscope Teamit looks like the johnson's organ is usually found at the base of the antenna
- Bugscope Teamall the fuzzy stuff is mold and fungus. they accrue when the insects are still juicy and are stuck in an enclosed space like a bag or other container
- TeacherStudent: I have seen stink bugs before, how is this a stink bugs head?
- Bugscope Teammy fault it got so wild because i didn't let them air out when we received them
- TeacherCould you point out the Johnson's organ for us?
Bugscope Teamthat isn't possible with this scope, but like cate said it's at the pedicel.
Bugscope Teamsorry, it's covered and we'd have to dissect the area for you to see it.
- Bugscope Teamstink bugs are true bugs. they have a proboscis, like an elephant's trunk, they use to stab and suck juices, either from plants or insects
- Bugscope Teamthe stinkbug drinks from plants
- Bugscope Teamhere's a pollen grain!
- Bugscope Teamragweed, which people often have allergies to, look like spiky balls
- Bugscope Teamhere is a fruit fly. the johnson's organ is within the fat antenna part, I think
- 3:15 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis was on a beetle antenna. it looks like it senses some kind of chemical information.
- Bugscope TeamIt almost looked like a spiracle, but you only find those along the body. Spiracles are breathing holes for insects (like noses and mouths for us)
- TeacherStudent: There is a spider that uses hairs on its abdomen and legs to trap air and swim, even hunt in the water. How does it do this?
Bugscope Teamif you're talking about the spider i think you are, they actually spend most of their time under water
Bugscope Teamthey make a web with air bubble that is a bell shape, and they sort of wait in there, and dart in and out to grab their prey.
Bugscope Teamthe bubble is trapped using the fine hairs on its abdomen, as for the actual physical mechanism of how this is done, i'm not entirely sure
- TeacherCould you please put up the slide with the Johnsons organ in it?
- Bugscope Teamhttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7235/fig_tab/458156a_F1.html shows what it looks like on a flyt
- TeacherCould you explain what the Johnson's organ does? Is this it in the view?\
Bugscope Teamthis is too far along the antenna to be the johnson's organ
Bugscope Teamit's kind of like their ear i guess. it senses vibrations from the antennae
- TeacherStudent: Could you show us a picture of the ear?
- Bugscope Teamantennae are as close as you get to ears on insects. they give insects a lot of input about what is going on around them
- Bugscope Teamhttp://livingwithinsects.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/the-ears-of-mosquitoes/ shows a mosquito, and talks a little bit about 'insect ears'
Bugscope Teamboth of these links are missing the : after http for me, just a heads up
- 3:21 pm
- Bugscope Teami will show you some spiracles on the stink bug
- TeacherStudent: How many spiracles are there?
Bugscope Teamdepends on the insect, most likely 8-10
Bugscope Teamusually a pair per segment from the thorax through to abdomen
- Bugscope Teamhere is a cool view of an insect eye
- TeacherStudent: Is there flesh below the exoskeleton? Like our type of flesh?
Bugscope Teamno. it is like a suit of armor and then underneath there are nerves and bug blood with organs in it
Bugscope Teamthey also have some muscle fibers
- TeacherStudent: How is hair coming out of there eye???
Bugscope Teamthe hairs help with sense of touch, and sometimes to help navigate wind currents
Bugscope Teamsince they have compound eyes, each of those bulbs (ommatidia) are separated.
Bugscope Teamthey work together to create a complete image, what they actually see is sort of what you might see on the computer screen if you zoomed in a lot on a picture, pixellated
- Bugscope Teamthe facets are made of the same stuff as the rest of their exoskeletons- chitin.
- 3:26 pm
- Bugscope TeamI wasn't sure if you could call these scales or flat setae, which are bug hairs
- TeacherStudent: What makes up the facets in there eyes??!
- Bugscope Teamthere are nerves under their eyes that transmits information to the brain about what they are seeing. The brain puts the information together into a picture, kind of like how our 2 eyes work together
- TeacherWhat are these scales composed of?
Bugscope Teamthey are also made of chitin, like the exoskeleton. They are connected to nerves underneath the exoskeleton. They help tell the insect what is going on around it. They give the insect information like our skin does for us
- TeacherStudent: are these hairs sensors?
Bugscope Teamthe hairs are sensors for insects. what we are seeing here is a claw at the end of a leg
- 3:32 pm
- TeacherDid this claw come from the beetle?
Bugscope Teamyes this is from the beetle that had the eyes covering almost the entire head. the wood beetle
- TeacherStudent: how do insects with free flowing blood pump it through their heart?
Bugscope Teamthey don't need to pump blood. Our bodies pump blood to move oxygen through our bodies. Their bodies have trachea, which get area through spiracles on their bodies. The trachea runs along their body and supplies the oxygen that way. The free flowing blood is just a place for their organs to sit in for the most part
Bugscope Teamthis is mostly true. they do have a heart, that is located in their abdomen, it's essentially a tube, sort of like our oesophagus, which uses peristaltic motions to move food to our stomach, their heart does the same thing, and pumps the liquid back forward toward the head. This is important in thermoregulation and flow of nutrients and waste management.
- TeacherStudents: How do we know this? What sensations do they feel? Can you link us to a study?
Bugscope TeamC. H. Eisemann, W. K. Jorgensen, D. J. Merritt, M. J. Rice, B. W. Cribb, P. D. Webb and M. P. Zalucki (1984) Do insects feel pain? — A biological view. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences 40: 1420-1423
- TeacherStudent: Do insects feel pain and/or emotion?
Bugscope TeamI believe entomologists agree that insects don't feel pain like we do. they can feel sensations but not pain
Bugscope Teamthey don't have the capacity to do so. the structures that are needed for these complex emotions are not present in insects.
- Teacher?
- TeacherStudent: do insects digest?
Bugscope Teamyes. externally or internally
- 3:38 pm
- TeacherWhat insects digest externally?
Bugscope Teamassassin bugs for one. the wheeled bug you see in the summer are a type of assassin bugs
Bugscope Teamthey inject digestive juices into another insect, and slowly suck the digested innards up.
- TeacherWould that include waterboatman?
Bugscope Teamyes the waterboatman do the same thing i believe, but they are not assassin bugs
- TeacherWhat is a hamuli?
Bugscope Teamthey are hooks on bees and wasps that hook the fore- and hindwings together
Bugscope Teamthey make it so that what are 2 pairs of wings act more like 1 giant pair of wings
- TeacherStudent: Currently exists (relating to the size question)
- Bugscope Teamthen when they want to go into an enclosed space, like their hive, they can unhook their wings and fold them around their body
- TeacherStudent: What is the largest insect recorded(Size/Species)
Bugscope Teamhmm, currently exists or extinct?
Bugscope Teamprotodonata, are probably the largest ever, and by weight, that would be the giant weta.
Bugscope Teami think by length it is some stick insect in SE Asia, and the titan beetle and goliath beetle would be good ones as well
- TeacherIs that from the Odonata Family?
Bugscope Teamwhat is?
- Teacher*protodonata
- 3:44 pm
- TeacherIs that the ocelli in the middle of the head?
Bugscope Teamthere are probably ocelli there, but they are hard to see. The holes are where the antennae were. There might be an ocellus between them
- Bugscope Teaminsects could get very big in prehistoric times because the oxygen was richer. richer oxygen means insects could have bigger bodies.
- TeacherStudent: Were there any larger extinct species of insects?
Bugscope Teamwell, insects in general tended to be larger, hmm not tended, but had the potential to be larger due to the richer oxygen int he atmosphere, so probably.
- 3:50 pm
- TeacherWhat is the proportion (on average) of the brain to the body/
- Bugscope Teamants have pretty big brains for their size. their brain to body proportion is 1:7.
- TeacherAre there any other insects other than Grylloblattodea that live in the Arctic/Antarctic?
Bugscope Teamthere can be bees and wasps and butterflies in the arctic, but it's prbably only during the warm season that they are around
Bugscope Teamthere are midges that apparently live on Antarctica year round
- TeacherPlease list the insect orders that are wingless.
Bugscope Teamprotura, collembola, diplura, archaegnatha, thysanura
Bugscope Teamsiphonaptera, and there are other insects that can be wingless but not entire orders
Bugscope Teamgrasshoppers, cockroaches, beetles, wasps and ironically flies all have species taht do not have wings
- Bugscope Teammidges are a type of fly
- 3:55 pm
- TeacherWe will need to leave you in two minutes.
- Bugscope Teamthank you for your great questions. You did a good job thinking of tough ones for us today
- TeacherAre spider beetles considered non-insects?
Bugscope Teamno, those are beetles.
Bugscope Teamthey are deathwatch beetles, sometimes when you hear clicking in your furniture, or like a faint ticking, it's most likely because your furniture is infested with these deathwatch beetles.
- TeacherIn my Audubon Spider Beetles are classified as spiders.
Bugscope Teamthe audubon makes a ton of mistakes in their books.
Bugscope Teamspider beetles if they are what i am thinking, should be under anobiidae, ptininae.
Bugscope Teamsometimes ptinidae
- TeacherWe look forward to following the links and checkin into the study.
- TeacherThank you we enjoyed chatting and learning with you today.
Bugscope Teamyou're welcome. it was fun!
- Bugscope TeamHave a wonderful rest of the week!
