Connected on 2015-03-16 10:30:00
from Contra Costa County, California, United States
- 9:51 am
- Bugscope Teammaking presets for today's session
- 9:57 am
- 10:04 am
- Bugscope Teamwe are ready to roll
- 10:24 am
- Bugscope Teamhuh
- Bugscope TeamIt's like it doesnt see you as admin Scot
- Bugscope Teamtry on your computer
- Bugscope Teamk
- 10:29 am
- Bugscope TeamGood morning!
- Bugscope Teamthis is Scot, on my office computer
- Bugscope Teamwelcome to Bugscope!
- TeacherGood morning!
- Bugscope Teamthis is a female mosquito
- TeacherThe students are looking at mosquitw
- Bugscope Teamhi!
- Bugscope Teamyou can see her eyes and one antenna, on the left
- Bugscope Teamthe lefthand antennae, which would be on the right, is broken off
- Bugscope Teamyou have control of the microscope and can change the magnification, focus, and contrast/brightness
- TeacherCurling up from the bottom is a leg?
Bugscope Teamthat is the proboscis, there in about the middle, curling off to the right
- Bugscope Teamat the tip of the proboscis, you can see the tip of the fascicle, which is what the cutting/bloodsucking components are
- Bugscope Teamthe background, with the bumps/holes, is carbon tape we use to stick the insects on
- Bugscope Teamthe things that may look like eyes with a stick coming out is actually part of the antenna
- 10:34 am
- Bugscope Teamawesome!
- Bugscope Teamthis is the underside of a spider!
- Bugscope Teamthe eyes are the bumps at the top of the head. they dont have compound eyes like the mosquito did
- Bugscope Teamthis is the scary part
- Teacherwhat ar we looking at in this picture?
- Bugscope Teamtheir eyes are more for seeing variations of light. it's not as good
- Bugscope Teamthe two large burrito looking like things are its fangs
- Bugscope Teamthe fangs are folded in towards it's mouth near the bottom
- Bugscope Teamthe things that look like droppers are the palps
- Bugscope Teamfemales have small palps and males have large ones
- Bugscope Teamit has lots of setae on it -- what look like hairs
- Bugscope Teamthe setae are sensitive to vibration
- TeacherWhat do they do?
- TeacherWhat are palps?
Bugscope Teamthey can move around food or to help taste things
- Bugscope Teammales use the palps, as well, during mating
- Bugscope TeamI think spider palps are also involved in mating
- Bugscope Teamyay Daniel!
- Teacher*what are those hairs
- 10:40 am
- Bugscope Teamif we look at the hairs up close -- you can bring the magnification up if you would like -- we will see that they are 'plumose,' kind of like skinny pine trees. at least some of them will be that way
- Bugscope Teamthe spider has lost one of its legs, on the left there
- TeacherWhat are they hairs?
Bugscope Teamthe hairs are sensory, they can be mechnosense, feeling changes in vibrations in the air, or elsewhere, or propriosense (a sense of self) so that they can determine where their own appendages are
- Bugscope Teamspiders can let their legs go, from their bodies, if they sense venom within them -- that is, if another spider has bitten them
- Bugscope Teamthey can choose which legs to let go. it is called autotomy.
- Bugscope Teamthese are the chelicers, or chelicerae, that hold the fangs at their tips
- TeacherWhy are some poisoness and how?
- TeacherThe students are getting a kick.
Bugscope Teamsweet!
Bugscope Teamawesome!
- Bugscope Teamthey are probably getting grossed out a bit
- Teachertotally. we are clapping when we get excited.
- 10:45 am
- Bugscope Teamall spiders, I believe, produce venom
- Teachera question from the students
- TeacherAre some poisoness?
Bugscope Teamthey have venom. Venom is when something is injected into another thing like a spider does to you or another insect/animal. Poison has to be ingested or absorbed, like a poison dart frog is poisonous. The spider here is venomous, but i dont know how it would affect a person
- 10:50 am
- TeacherWhat do they use the venom for?
- TeacherHow do they have poison? Where is it located?
Bugscope TeamThey have venom glands within their bodies, perhaps in the chelicers. I am not sure just where the venom is.
Bugscope TeamIf they are poisonous, it'd most likely be systemic, and throughout the body.
- Bugscope TeamSpiders inject venom into their prey, and the venom often paralyzes or otherwise immobilizes the prey. It also starts to dissolve the internal organs of the prey so that the spider can suck it all up like a protein shake.
Bugscope TeamThe bigger ones also tend to go after dwarves and hobbits. :)
- Bugscope Teamdo you want to look at the trapjaw ant?
- Bugscope Teamoh this is cool -- the bee!
- Bugscope Teamsee the little dome on the top of the back of its head?
- Bugscope Teamhere we see the antennae, forming a V over the mouthparts, and to the sides of the head we see the compound eyes
- TeacherThey said it looks like he has a mustache
Bugscope Teamhaha Yeah! Like a food filter.
- 10:57 am
- Bugscope Teamthe dome on the top of the head at the back is one of three. the other two you can barely make out. those are the ocelli, which are simple eyes.
- TeacherI'm typing for the students
- Bugscope Teamlobsters are kind of like a bug, as much of one as a rolypoly is
Bugscope Teamhaha Yeah! Lobsters are crustaceans like crabs and shrimp, and rolypolies are actually crustaceans as well!
- Bugscope Teamthere was a story recently in the news about the ancestor of lobsters that is about 7 feet long
- 11:02 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of a cute little ladybug larva
- TeacherWhat are we looking at now?
- Bugscope Teamthe head is to the right, and it has a little bump that looks like an eye but its a stubby antenna
- Bugscope Teamthe eyes are quite small, like little bumps, called stemmata\
- TeacherDo you know the biggest insect?
Bugscope Teamthe beetles called Goliath beetles are sometimes said to be the largest insects. some people would say, also, that stick insects, which may be 21 inches long, are the largest
Bugscope TeamThere are absolutely huge (and scary!) ones in the fossil record. One dragonfly fossil had a wingspan of over 60cm (24 inches)! http://news.ucsc.edu/2012/06/giant-insects.html
Bugscope TeamThere's a titan beetle that gives the goliath beetle a run for its money, and the giant weta (a really large cricket from New Zealand) would be one of the heaviest
Bugscope TeamIf you follow science news, there was a report of the discovery of the fossil of a giant arthropod similar to a lobster that ate like a baleen whale. This monster grew to be about 2m long (6 feet)!
Bugscope TeamHere's an easy to understand summary: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/science/fossil-tells-of-520-million-year-old-creature-like-a-giant-lobster.html?_r=0
Bugscope Teamand here's the scientific paper: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14256.html
- Bugscope Teamall times...
- Bugscope Teamthey have a comb like this on each of their forelimbs
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the built-in combs that ants use to help clean their antennae, so they are presentable at all time
- TeacherSo its not an antennae? Is it near one?
Bugscope Teamyou can go to the head to see the antennae
Bugscope Teamit is not very close to the head, I think, right now
- Bugscope Teamgood job driving!
Bugscope Teamyou can click on the head, and the microscope will center that for you
- 11:08 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is a long, skinny ant from Brazil -- a trapjaw ant.
- TeacherWhat do insects eat?
- Bugscope Teamsome insects only eat certain things, and some eat anything that is even remotely edible
- Bugscope Teamsome ants -- the leafcutter ants -- cut leaves, of various types, and grow different fungus on each type of leaf to eat. they are farmers.
- Bugscope TeamI think the trapjaw ant people told us that this species of ant eats whatever it wants
- Bugscope Teamsome trapjaw ants specialize in eating springtails
- Teacheror ants?
Bugscope Teamants can eat a variety of things, dependent on species. Leaf cutter ants eat fungus mostly, there are ants that eat seeds, and a number of ant species are generalist , and some are predaceous eating other insects/arthropods
Bugscope Teamthere are also ants that tend to aphids/other sap feeding insects, and feed on their exudate (honeydew)
- Bugscope Teamspringtails are tiny bugs you find in leaflitter, and they are not, I believe, considered insects
Bugscope Teamthey are no longer considered insects
- 11:13 am
- Bugscope Teamwhat shape is this?
- TeacherWhat insect is this?
- Bugscope Teamthis is a lacewing. their larvae eat lots of insects that are harmful to gardens and to plants in general\
- Bugscope Teamlacewing larvae are like ladybug larvae; they like, especially, to eat aphids
- Bugscope Teamas adults they are said to eat nectar and pollen, from flowers, and they also feed on honeydew, which is produced by aphids
- 11:18 am
- Bugscope Teamhere we can see that the honeybee has jaws, or mandibles, that open side to side, like a gate
- TeacherThis one looks like his tongue is sticking out?
Bugscope Teamthe part that is hanging down is called the labrum, and it covers the tongue, which is called a 'glossa.'
- Bugscope Teamaphids have little dual exhaust pipes, called cornicles, or siphuncles, that sometimes produce honeydew, feeding the ants that farm them
Bugscope TeamI think the cornicles are defensive. The honeydew comes out of the anus.
- Bugscope Teamthose are scratches
Bugscope Teamon the wing
- Bugscope Teamthese resemble dragonfly wings
- TeacherHow do insect, like ants, climb trees?
Bugscope Teamthey have tarsal claws, and the texture of a lot of "smooth" surfaces are actually fairly rough, and so for things of the size of insects, they can latch on to those tiny roughness on the surface.
- Bugscope Teamwe can see where the wings are fractured -- they are very thin
- Bugscope Teamto the left and down we see, for comparison, the wing of a moth
- 11:24 am
- Bugscope Teamotherwise, to the left, we see little craters in the doublestick tape the insects are stuck to
- Bugscope Teamyay!
- Bugscope Teamthis is the trapjaw ant
- Bugscope Teamand this is a beetle
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the beetle's antennae, with little lobes near the ends
- Bugscope Teampollen!
- TeacherThe students loved it!
- Bugscope Teamthanks for using bugscope with us today
- TeacherWe have to sign off now for recess.
Bugscope TeamThank you for connecting with us!
- TeacherThank you so very much!
- Bugscope TeamThanks! have a good recess.
- Bugscope TeamI will email the link to your transcript.
