Connected on 2015-01-09 10:00:00
from Pinellas County, Florida, United States
- 8:18 am
- Bugscope Teamsetting up for today's session...
- 8:27 am
- Bugscope Teamsample is in the chamber and pumping down
- 8:42 am
- Bugscope Teamvac ok; we're almost ready to start making presets
- 8:51 am
- 8:58 am
- 9:04 am
- 9:11 am
- 9:16 am
- 9:24 am
- TeacherStudents will be here in 35 mins. See you then!
- Bugscope Teamsweet!
- 9:30 am
- Bugscope Teamwea
- Bugscope Teamtry that again
- Bugscope Teamwe are ready to roll!
- 9:36 am
- 9:58 am
- TeacherStudents are beginning to log in
- Bugscope TeamHello Mira, hello Maddie!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- Studenthello
- Bugscope Teamplease let us know when you have questions, about anything....
- Bugscope Teamthe sharp things we see on the front of the head are the beetle's mandibles
- Bugscope TeamHi Rylee! Hello Lance! Hi Anastasia!
- Studenthi this is so cool
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope, everyone!
- StudentHello
- TeacherLet's let Mira take control first :)
Bugscope TeamMira is the supreme ruler.
- Bugscope Teamthis is a small beetle -- I think it is a rove beetle, but I am not sure.
Bugscope Teamrove beetles belong to the insect family staphylinidae. staphylinidae is one of the most specious families of insects, with close to 60,000 species described world wide. Most rove beetles are carnivores. They have tiny truncated forewings, which you unfortunately cannot see here as this rove beetle is on its back
- Bugscope Teamthis is the top of the head, where we can see sparse setae, which look like hair to us
- 10:04 am
- Studentwhat are mandibles?
Bugscope Teamthey are the jaws. in people, the lower jaw is called the mandible, and the upper jaw is called the maxilla
Bugscope Teamthey are used to grasp and sometimes pierce, prey
Bugscope TeamScientists tend to reuse the same words for similar structures in different organisms. most insects for example also have a second set of mouthparts called maxilla, which are also used to grasp and chew food
- Studentwhat are the craters behind the beetle
Bugscope Teamthose are pits or bubbles in the doublestick carbon tape we use to help hold the insects onto the stub
- Studentcool
- Studentwher are the eyes
Bugscope Teamthey are on the sides of the head -- you can see them now, maybe
- StudentAre those hairs or antennae?
Bugscope TeamThe large, multisegmented protrusions just above the mandibles are the antennae. insects only have two antennae but have many thousands of hairs, which we entomologists refer to as setae
- Studentthank you
- Studenthow strong are its jaws?
Bugscope TeamNot sure exactly. If it bit you most likely it wouldn't be able to pierce the skin. Rove beetles tend to be pretty small.
- StudentHow big is the beetle withought magnifacation?
Bugscope Teamless than a centimeter, like 8 or 9 millimeters, I think
- StudentHello
Bugscope TeamHello, Fabi!
- StudentThat is one small beetle
- Studenthello
- Studentwhat are the protrusions? many of us want to know
Bugscope Teamthe ones on the side of the head are the compound eyes
- TeacherLet's let Noah have control now :)
Bugscope TeamNoah is the pope of the 'scope now
- Teachercan he change "bugs" ... I can't remember?...
Bugscope Teamyes, by clicking on one of the presets, to the left
- Bugscope Teamthis is a very small assassin bug
- Bugscope Teamand here we see two mites, hanging from web between the limbs of the assassin bug
- 10:09 am
- StudentIf the bateria is helpful what does it do for this orginism?
Bugscope Teamnot all bacteria are helpful, but it's possible they could help break down something an insect would want to eat, for example.
- StudentHow large is the mite
Bugscope Teamwe can see from the micron bar on the lower left that the mites are maybe 300 microns long, which is 3/10ths of a millimeter
- Studentyou are punny
- TeacherJosh needs to go to Second City in Chicago... :)
- StudentWow that's small
- Studentdo mites have antena
Bugscope Teamno they don't, as far as I know
- Studentare mites parasitic?
Bugscope Teamsome are parasitic, and some serve a beneficial purpose
- Student How long have these been dead and how are they preserved
Bugscope Teamthey are dry -- that is the only preservation they have; they have been dead for various times, part of our collections
- StudentWhy is it called a assasin bug?
- Studentwhat does this bug do
Bugscope Teamit pierces the chitinous exoskeleton of other bugs and drinks the hemolymph and liquefied internal organs
- 10:14 am
- StudentWhat do the mites to the assasin bug?
Bugscope TeamDrew we are not sure what they are doing there; we are not sure they were there when the assassin bug was alive.
Bugscope Teamsome mites are ectoparasites that feed off of insects hemolymph (i.e. their blood); others are what we call phoretic, which means that they simply use insects for transport, kind of like how we used to ride horses to get from place to place. Some mites are also beneficial to insects in that they feed on waste and bacteria on the insects cuticle and keep them clean. These relationships are known as symbioses
- StudentAre those white bubble things eyes?
Bugscope Teamcorrect!
- TeacherDo you all see the two mites from from the previous slide?
- TeacherLet's let Fabiana have control
- Studentwhy are there holes in its body
Bugscope Teamsome of the holes we may see are from pins that had been inserted in the thorax once the insect died to keep it as a specimen
- StudentAre those leg segments on the assasin bug have sockets?
Bugscope Teamthey sometimes have what look like ball and socket joints where they are connected to the body
- Studentwhat does the assasin bug use to catch food?
Bugscope Teamit uses a venom that dissolves the internal components of other insects/arthropods and then sucks them up like a milkshake; it uses its proboscis
Bugscope Teamassassin bugs have relatively spiny forelegs, which they use to get a firm grip on their prey while they stab it with their proboscis (called a rostrum in true bugs) and inject them with their venomous saliva. in this respect assassin bugs forelegs are similar to praying mantis forelegs, although praying mantises have a much more extensive adaptation
- TeacherCan Fabi have control
Bugscope TeamFabi is in charge.
- StudentI am usually would be very distgusted right now, but at the moment I am astonished
Bugscope Teamhaha!
Bugscope Teamwelcome to our world kid
- Bugscope Teamthese are tiny setae ('hairs') that we call tenent setae; they are found on a pad called a pulvillus that helps the insect cling to a surface, like a ceiling
- Studentare these on its legs
Bugscope Teamyes they are on little pads that are attached the forelimbs
- TeacherThey are like knitting needles that help the beetle defy gravity
Bugscope Teamnever heard it described like that before haha.... like the beetles are knitting sweaters in their spare time ;)
- 10:19 am
- StudentHow small are pulvilie?
Bugscope TeamI think in the tens of microns. A micron is a millionth of a meter and a thousandth of a millimeter.
- Studentwhat are thoses needle like things made of?
Bugscope Teammost likely they are composed primarily of cuticle, or exoskeleton. An insects exoskeleton is composed primarily of a chemical called chitin.
- Studenthow big is that not magnified
Bugscope Teamthis looks like a little grain of powder to us; it is I think a hundred microns long
- TeacherCan Riley take control?
- StudentCool thats the wing!!Its like minature wings that help it fly right?
Bugscope Teamthey're kind of like feathers, but another purpose of them is to protect the insect bearing them from getting caught in a spider web. because they come off easily...
- Studentwhy would they have crystals on there wing
Bugscope Teamthe crystals are not adaptive, the insect just hasn't bathed in a while I suppose...
- TeacherI mean Rylee... sorry Rylee ;(
Bugscope TeamRylee is now the Supreme Commander.
- Student whats on the wing? it kind of looks like rocks
Bugscope Teamyes when we see tiny things like this they may be some kind of mineral, sometimes crystallized chemicals
- Studentare there several wings or just 2
Bugscope Teamthese are just wing scales here -- ones that were loose and ended up on the body of the grasshopper
- Studenthow many little" rocks" are their on its wings?
Bugscope Teamthere should be few -- it's kind of an accident or chance that there would be 'rocks' there
- 10:24 am
- Studentwhat is a diatom
- Bugscope Teamsorry Rylee it looks like this shifted since we made the preset
- Studentit looks like a shrviled up old man
- Studenthow are the wings attatched to the grasshopper?
Bugscope Teamthe wings themselves are composed mostly of chitin and are essentially nonliving, although they do have hemolymph flowing through them. they attach to the body by a series of membranous flaps and chitinous rods that allow the insects thoracic muscles to move them, similar to how you would row a boat using oar handles from inside the boat
- Studentits okay
- Bugscope Teamthere are a lot of diatoms on the dried slime from the snail, but that one is especially cool looking
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the pulvilli
- Studentit looks like a comb
Bugscope Teamyes it does
- Studentwhat is the white thing in the middle
Bugscope Teamthat was a flake of something, just a piece of debris to us
- StudentOn the pulvilus is their a sticky substance that helps it climb?
Bugscope Teamyes I believe there is often a fine sticky substance
- Studentwhat is the diatom
Bugscope Teama diatom is a single-celled alga (an algae)
Bugscope Teamdiatoms tend to have very elaborate crystal like structures that they build around themselves. diatoms come in a spectacular array of shapes and sizes, they're quite beautiful as far as single celled organisms go
Bugscope Teamthey have a sexual and asexual phase, they will continuously split into two getting smaller and smaller until a point and go into a sexual phase.
- Studentis this a type beetle?
Bugscope Teamthis is part of a beetle; I don't remember which, now
- Studentwhat are thooses scales?
Bugscope Teamthe things that look like scales now are the pads, called pulvilli (singular pulvillus)
- 10:29 am
- TeacherCan Anastasia take control now, please? :)
Bugscope Teamgot it!
- Studentcan we break the microscope
Bugscope Teambut then you won't see anything
Bugscope Teamare you asking permission or if its physically possible for you to damage it from your location?
- StudentAm I in control
Bugscope Teamyes you are!
- Studentwhat is a snail made of?
- Studenti mean is that sand ;)
- StudentIt looks like fungus on a furry tree is it?
Bugscope Teamsort of...
- StudentSince this bug has a tibial it has bones so can bugs have artiritis?
Bugscope Teamhaha. It's more that we appropriated a word used for bones and used it to describe the exoskeleton.
Bugscope Teamlike mandible and maxillae being used in insects and humans to describe mouth parts.
Bugscope Teamplus most insects don't feel pain
- StudentAre those rocks inside the shell
Bugscope Teamwhat we see when we look up close are the shells of diatoms, which are made of silica; they also look like rocks
- TeacherAnastasia is going to zoom in on the compound eye...
- StudentI mean accidently
Bugscope TeamI doubt you could. Scot would know more than I though
Bugscope Teamwe have things set up so it would be very difficult to break the 'scope over the web
Bugscope TeamTheres probably a higher probability that Scot would spill coffee on it and break it that way than you guys doing anything
- Studentit looks like a honey comb
- 10:35 am
- Studentit looks like the eye is a honeycomb but its a compound eye right? And so can they see out of each hexagon?
- Studentsorry?
- Studentcool
- Studentwhy does it have things that look like hair right next to the eye
Bugscope TeamI think that was strands, or a strand, of fungus
- Studentcan you determine the age of the snail based on the size?
Bugscope Teamin part, but it could be undernourished, so I am not sure how well that would work
Bugscope Teamyou can tell based on the relative amount of shell growth, not so much based on overall body size. I had a malacologist as a professor freshman year (a scientist who studies molluscs) who was always showing off by aging snails for the class, so its possible if you know what youre doing
- TeacherCan Lance have control now?
Bugscope TeamLance is now in charge.
- StudentWhat is a ommotidia?
Bugscope Teamommatidia (singular ommatidium) are the facets of the compound eye
- StudentIs each hexagon like an eye?
Bugscope Teamit's like the outer lens face of a single sensor, and in a way it is a single eye
Bugscope Teameach of the hexagons will help complete a part of the whole picture
- StudentI'm so nervous
Bugscope Teamhaha Nothing to it.
Bugscope TeamIf Scott can do it so can you right? :)
- Studentwhat are we looking at?
Bugscope Teamthis is a whirligig beetle
Bugscope Teamwhirligig beetles are pretty amazing
- StudentIs that the jaw?
Bugscope Teamthose were the mandibles, or jaws
- Studentcool thank you Scot J
- Studenthow big are the ants jaws?
Bugscope Teamthey're on the hundreds or even tens of microns scale, depending on the ant; 100 microns is a tenth of a millimeter
- 10:40 am
- TeacherWe have 4 students left to operate the SEM :)
- StudentHow does it open its mouth to eat?
Bugscope Teaminsect mouths are complicated, and there are many variations; this one has mandibles and also a clypeus, in the middle; it opens like a garage door
Bugscope Teamfor the mandibles specifically, in ants there is a mandible abductor (opener) muscle inside the head that attaches to an interior tip of the mandible and moves the entire mandible open when it contracts. Again, the analogy of rowing a boat with oars works here
- Studentwhat is the hairs
Bugscope Teamthe hairs are important because insects do not have skin, like we do, with nerve endings in it; the hairs, called setae, stick through the exoskeleton, which is like a shell, and they help sense chemicals, hot/cold, touch, etc.
- TeacherCan Drew have control now?
Bugscope TeamDrew has control...
- StudentCan't a ant carry pick up 100 times it's own body weight?
Bugscope Teamsomething like that, but its not so much that the ant is very strong as it is that physics works a little bit differently at that size and allows them to have more efficient muscles. Most insects can probably claim a similar feat
Bugscope TeamIf someone increased the ant to our size, it would simply collapse under the weight of its own exoskeleton
- Studentdo the hair looking like things help them with anything
Bugscope Teamyes they help them taste, smell, feel hot/cold, sense chemicals in the air (such as pheromones), and also sense touch and wind
Bugscope Teamsome of these hairs let them know where their own legs and appendages are, since they have a hard shell, they can't feel the outside world like we do.
Bugscope Team*exoskeleton
- Studenti mean are the hairs;(
Bugscope Teamthey can be thermosensory, chemosensory, mechanosensory, used for proprioception, and they can also be wing scales
- Studentwhat is on the eye
Bugscope Teammostly we see long wing scales and fungus -- fungal hyphae
- 10:45 am
- StudentIs the stuff on the eye metallic spray? If not what is it??
Bugscope Teamit's a lot of debris from being stored with other insects
- Studenthow big is the grasshopper with out zooming in?
Bugscope Teamit's several cm long
- StudentBut I thought the exo-skeleton protected it??
Bugscope TeamIt does, but exoskeletons are only practical if you are under a certain size. in order to increase muscle power you have to increase the amount of exoskeleton you carry around. there is an upper limit to how efficient that can be. Its why we don't see beetles the size of cars when we look out the window
- TeacherCan Madison have control, now?
- Studentit looks like a dager
Bugscope Teamit's a little hard to see now, but there is a venom pore in the tip
- StudentAwesome thanks Josh1!
Bugscope TeamNo problem Rylee :) I used to work with someone named Rylee (he spelled it different though), he studied butterflies
- Studentdo ants inject venoum if so do they use it to catch their food?
Bugscope Teamyes to kill/subdue their food
- Studentcool
- TeacherCan Madison have control?
Bugscope TeamMaddie has control.
- Studentthanks scot
- StudentWhat type of bacteria is it???
Bugscope Teamthose are almost all bacilli -- the rod-shaped bacteria; specifically, we don't know for example if they are E. coli...
- StudentHow do ants use their stingers
Bugscope Teamthey have venom in the stingers that can hurt and also in some cases paralyze their prey
Bugscope TeamThey of course also use their stings in defense of their colony from larger organisms, as you are well aware of if you've ever sat down on a fire ant nest mound
- StudentHow small is the bacteria on the beetle?
Bugscope Teambacilli -- the rod-shaped bacteria -- are usually about 2 microns long
- 10:50 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is the top of the head of a fruitfly
- StudentWhat are the little hairs near the eyes?
Bugscope Teamthey're setae that help sense wind speed, and touch
- StudentWhy is there a dent in the compound eye did you find it that way?
Bugscope Teamthe dents happen with drying and usually after the insect has died
- Studenthow dors the eye get dented
Bugscope Teamusually what happens is drying makes it collapse
- Studentis it true that flies barf every time they land?
Bugscope Teamthere are all different types of flies, but some, with sponging mouthparts, do that frequently
Bugscope TeamIts not so much barfing per se. since the flies have sponge like mouthparts they cannot chew their food (you try crushing something with a sponge sometime), and instead spit up their digestive saliva on their food, which predigests it into a liquid form and allows them to sponge it up with their mouthparts.
- StudentDo different bugs have different shapes in the compound eyes?
Bugscope Teamthe individual facets tend to be hexagon in shape still, but the number of facets vary quite a bit between different species.
- TeacherCan Olivia be supreme ruler of the SEM now?
Bugscope TeamQueen Olivia, coronated at this moment.
- Studenthow many bugs are in the lab?
Bugscope Teamwe have hundreds to thousands of dry ones and some in liquid that we can dry properly so they don't shrivel
- StudentLets hope I don't break this I have a tendancy to do that.
Bugscope Teamhaha Good Luck!
- StudentDo the wing scales have microscopic holes in them or is that something else
Bugscope Teamthey do indeed have tiny holes in them; they are much like feathers
- StudentHow long have you worked with the microscope?
- StudentIt looks like those crakers in chek mix.
Bugscope Teamyes, and sometimes they look like Ruffles potato chips
- Studentcool
- 10:55 am
- Bugscope Teamthe divisions between the ridges can interfere with the light that comes from the scales, and it can thus result in us seeing different colors depending on the angle at which we see the scale
- Bugscope Teamthe ridges are about the length of a bacterium
- Bugscope Teamthe width of the ridges, that is
- TeacherCan Hannah have control now? She's the last student :(... We don't want this to end... it's amazing!!
Bugscope TeamHannah has been quite patient throughout.
- Bugscope Teamwhere are you guys from?
- StudentHow far apart are the fragments of this image without magnification?
Bugscope Teamthey are too small for us to see with the unaided eye -- we can only see the scales as tiny bits of powder
- TeacherTarpon Springs, Florida... near Tampa
Bugscope TeamOh.... probably a little bit warmer down there than in Champaign right now I'd imagine ;)
- Studentwow
- Bugscope Teamwow
- StudentHow long did you have htis job?
Bugscope TeamI am a masters/PhD graduate student in entomology. I am a volunteer. Ive been volunteering since September of 2014
- StudentSuper cool is it on the wasp body??
- Bugscope Teamthese are the wing clips that hold the fore and hindwing together for bees and wasps, which have four wings but fly with two stuck together on each side
- Bugscope Teamoops now we're looking at the head...
- 11:00 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is the mouth of the whirligig beetle
- TeacherActually we are freezing this week - way too cold for us! 45 when we woke up today :(
Bugscope TeamIts 7 here...
Bugscope Teamlol.
Bugscope Teamis it actually in single digits? I thought it was cold but didn't realize
Bugscope Teamaccording to weather.com, its 8, but it feels like its -11. If it makes you feel any better, its -45 and foggy in Yakutsk, Siberia! knowing now much it must suck to live there is what gets me through the winter
- StudentAt least its not negatives
Bugscope Teamyesterday morning it was -3 outside
- TeacherThank you so much for this experience - the students LOVED it. My grade 5 did it last year and it's now a tradition in my class :)
Bugscope TeamAwesome!
- TeacherOK students thank them and say good bye :)
- Studentbye
- StudentWhat are those little arclike figures
Bugscope Teamthose are mandibles
Bugscope Teamsuper sharp
- Studenti feel bad for you
Bugscope TeamI'm safe in the basement of the Beckman Institute, 23 feet underground. The weather never changes down here.
Bugscope TeamI'm still laying in bed in my jammies. Nice and warm
- StudentThank you guys sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much this was awesome
- StudentGoodbye
- Bugscope TeamThank you, Everyone!
- Bugscope TeamWe enjoyed working with you.
- Studentthank you sooo much this was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cool !!!
- Studentwe are floridians were not used to cold
- Bugscope TeamNo problem :) glad to help. Bye everyone! Stay in school
- Studentthank you and dont freeze to death!
Bugscope Teamhaha Thank you, Hannah!
- TeacherSee you next year with another group of students!
- StudentTHANKS I wish I could do this again
- StudentThank you, bye, i really enjoyed bugscpoe! It was awesome, stay warm.
- Studentplease dont freeze
- Studentkeep warm
- Bugscope TeamSee you next year!
- Bugscope TeamThanks! Have a good weekend!
- TeacherThat's ridiculous! I need it 78 and balmy every day!
Bugscope Teamhaha, right?!
Bugscope TeamIts okay really. Its a wet cold....?
- Studentbye
- StudentThis was a amazing experience. Don't catch hypothermia!
- Studentthank you soooooooooo much it was soooooooooo cool bye don't turn to ice
Bugscope TeamThank you, Mira!
- Bugscope TeamBye!
- Studentno were in 5th grade
- Student:) :) :) :) :) :) :)
- StudentI used to not like bugs other then bees and butterflies now I do thanks bye
Bugscope TeamSweet!
- Studentyou guys are the best
Bugscope TeamThank you, Lance!
- Studentyou are the best
- StudentBye
Bugscope TeamBye Maddie!
- Studentbye
Bugscope TeamBye Hannah!
- Studentyou guys rock
- Studentbye
Bugscope TeamSee you, Anastasia!
- Studentbye
Bugscope TeamBye Drew!
- 11:05 am
- Student:] i really liked it
Bugscope TeamYay! It is super fun for us.
- Bugscope Teamalright we are shutting down
- Bugscope TeamThank You, Mrs. Hogan! See you next year!
- Bugscope TeamThank you, Ellsworth!