Connected on 2015-02-05 16:00:00
from McLean County, Illinois, United States
- 3:15 pm
- Bugscope Teamsetting up for today's session
- 3:21 pm
- 3:27 pm
- 3:33 pm
- 3:38 pm
- Bugscope Teamhello!@]
- Bugscope Teamwelcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Teamwe are making presets for your session today
- Bugscope Teamyou are officiallly scheduled for 4 p.m., right?
- TeacherYes. I just signed into to make sure it was working
- Bugscope Teamyay! super cool
- Bugscope TeamI will make some more presets.
- 3:43 pm
- 3:49 pm
- 3:54 pm
- Bugscope Teamwe are ready to roll!
- 4:00 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the ladybug's antennae
- Bugscope Teamplease let us know when you have questions
- Bugscope Teamyou can control the microscope using your computer, and you can also click on any of the presets, on the screen to the left, and the 'scope will drive to that place
- Bugscope Teamthis is another beetle
- TeacherThe girls are arriving.
- Bugscope Teamsweet!
- Bugscope Teamto the left of the beetle's head, and above it, we see the tail end of a very long thin caterpillar
- 4:05 pm
- TeacherCan we start with the fly?
Bugscope Teamyes anything you would like
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the fruit flies
- Bugscope Teamwe're looking at the compound eye, which is made up of tiny facets called ommatidia
- Bugscope Teamsometimes there is dirt on the eye, as there is now
- Bugscope Teamto the right we see a swath of setae, tiny hairs
- Bugscope Teamsome setae are sensory
- TeacherNatalia asks why is there dirt on the eye?
Bugscope Teamit may not be the fruitfly's fault; because it is dead the dirt may have gotten on there after it died
- Bugscope Teaminsects can 'groom' their eyes and other body parts to keep them clean
- Bugscope Teamants, for example, have little combs on their forelimbs
- TeacherWhy are the facets shaped like hexagons?
Bugscope Teamhexagons are the best shapes for close-packed round things in a dome shape, so it happens the the generally round features take on a hexagonal shape
- Bugscope Teamwe see that with bee hives, and also with crystals, sometimes
- Bugscope Teamthe background is carbon doublestick tape
- Bugscope Teamthe tape has those little craters in it
- 4:10 pm
- Bugscope Teamwe can see that the wing is broken
- TeacherThey want to see the wing up close
- Bugscope Teamflies are called Diptera, which means 'two winged'
- Bugscope Teamthese features, on the wing, are microsetae
- Teacherwhat do they do?
- Bugscope Teamthey help add surface area to the wing, they help keep bacteria off the wings of some insects, and they also seem to help keep the wings from getting stuck flat to a surface when they get wet
- Bugscope Teamin the distance we see some scales, which come from butterflies, moths, skippers, silverfish, mosquitoes, and few other insects
- Teacherhow do we see other bugs?
Bugscope Teamclick on one of the presets on the lefthand screen, if you click the white arrow in the blue circle
- Teacherthanks
Bugscope Teamif for some reason a certain preset does not work, I can likely help.
- 4:15 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis caterpillar is still soft, not completely dry, so it has been moving around a bit in the vacuum of the specimen chamber
- TeacherThe girls want to know how he died.
- Bugscope Teamkind of rotten, we can see
- Bugscope Teamsome of today's samples have bacteria on them
- Teacherthey are impressed
- Bugscope Teamthis is a moth's head
- Bugscope Teammoths are covered with scales, which help them fly, kind of like feathers, but their primary purpose seems to be protecting them from spiders
- Bugscope Teamthis is the moth eye up very close, where we can see tiny features that seem to help focus the light into the individual lenses
- 4:20 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe shape we see now is where we were before
- Bugscope Team(the rectangular shape)
- Bugscope Teamthe moth's head is glowing because with all of the scales, even though we coated it with gold-palladium before the session, it charges up with electrons
- Bugscope Teamto the right we see the tongue, or actually, the proboscis
- TeacherThey want to take a second to draw the eyes and scales
Bugscope Teamall good!
- Bugscope Teamthe compound eye is to the left, in the middle are scales that are likely on one of the palps, and to the right is the coiled proboscis
- Bugscope Teamthe scales look cool - the ends are ruffled like that
- Bugscope Teamif we look at the proboscis, up very close, we see that they have tiny sharp spines on them like thorns
- TeacherThe girls are all first graders so they are working on making good observations
Bugscope Teamsweet!
- 4:26 pm
- TeacherThey are very impressed with the bugs eyes and scales
Bugscope Teamsome compound eyes have thousands of individual ommatidia, or facets
- Bugscope Teambeetle claws almost always come in pairs, like pincers; one of the claws is broken off here
- TeacherWhy do beetles need sharp claws?
Bugscope Teamthe claws help them grasp things and the finer the tips are the better control they have in holding onto soft surfaces
- Bugscope Teamthis is so small you would not feel it, just a tickle if you felt anything at all
- Bugscope Teamooh
- Bugscope Teamthis is an ant stinger, from a trapjaw ant from Brazil
- Bugscope Teamthe entomologists who gave this to us said the sting is like that of a wasp -- it hurts
- Bugscope Teamit is almost a millimeter long
- TeacherWhat are the hairs around the stinger?
- 4:31 pm
- Bugscope Teamthose are setae that help the ant sense its surroundings
- Bugscope Teamwe are not supposed to call things that look like hair in insects 'hair,' although of course we do
- Bugscope Teaminsects have their skeleton on the outside, so it is more like a shell
- Bugscope Teamor like a suit of armor
- Bugscope Teamthis is really cool, where we are now
- TeacherWhat do they use the proboscis for?
Bugscope Teamthey stick the proboscis, uncoiled, into flowers in order to suck the nectar out
- Bugscope Teamthe proboscis is all coiled up right now
- Bugscope Teamthe proboscis is hollow, like a straw
- Bugscope Teammoth and butterfly proboscises usually have a seam running along their length that they can open up
- TeacherWhy does it have spikes?
Bugscope TeamI think the spikes help it stick to the inside walls of the flower; they may be flying at the same time they insert the proboscis into the flower, so it helps them hold on
- Teachermany curled tounge faces as they think about the hollow proboscis
Bugscope Teamawesome!
- 4:36 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is so cool -- so very small
- Teacherit is really neat!
- Bugscope Teamthe reason insects have so many setae (so many tiny hairs) is that the setae help them sense touch, and wind, and they help them taste, and also sense hot and cold
- TeacherThey are drawing lots of pictures!
Bugscope Teamyay!
- Bugscope Teamthe setae, at least the larger ones, stick through the exoskeleton and connect to nerves underneath
- TeacherWhat can you tell us about the beetle?
Bugscope Teamwe are looking at its mandibles now, which are its jaws; they open side to side like a gate, not like our jaws do
Bugscope Teamthe little things that curve inward toward each other are palps, which help the beetle taste and also manipulate its food into its mouth
Bugscope TeamI am not sure just what this kind of beetle is, but when we look at its legs we can see that it cannot cling to surfaces like flies and some other beetles can
- 4:42 pm
- Teacheris this the same beetle we saw the claw of?
Bugscope Teamyes it is; the other beetles on the stub today are ladybird beetles, or ladybugs
- Bugscope Teamthis, now, is a ladybug
- Bugscope TeamI am sorry its arms and legs were broken after it died
- Bugscope Teambut its head looks good, and we can see that its eyes are streamlined into the sides of the head
- Bugscope Teambut here also is something cool
- Bugscope Teamyay!
- Bugscope Teamthese tiny setae help the ladybug stick to the ceiling
- TeacherIs this the foot?
Bugscope Teamyes this is part of the foot -- it is a pad that can be found on each foot, and it has these tiny sticky hairs (stick setae) on it
Bugscope Teamflies have setae like this as well
Bugscope Teamthe other beetle did not have tenent setae on its legs and arms, and thus it could not have climbed up a wall very easily
- 4:48 pm
- Bugscope TeamI want to show you the same kind of thing on a fruit fly foot
- Bugscope Teamthis is so cool!
- Bugscope Teamsee the tiny sticky setae next to the claws?
- TeacherThey like the spikes!
Bugscope Teamoh yeah!
- Bugscope Teamso very small -- even the fly is small
- Bugscope Teamsome of the smaller spikes are used for proprioception, which means that the fly uses those spines or spikes to tell what position its claw is in
- Bugscope Teamwhen the spines bend from the claw touching them, the fly can feel it
- TeacherCould we stick to walls if we had feet or hands like this?
Bugscope Teamyes you could!
- Bugscope Teamwe can get an idea that flies walk by sticking the pads down and then flexing their claws to pull the pads loose until the next step
- Teachernow they are trying to stick to the wall...
- Bugscope Teamgeckos have even smaller setae on their hands and feet
- 4:53 pm
- Bugscope Teamand we know that geckos, some of them, can run across your ceiling
- Bugscope Teamif you try to catch a gecko, though, its tail may break off, and it will run away; it has to grow a new tail later
- TeacherAre there any other cool things we should see before our time is up?
Bugscope Teamwe can see bacteria, so I would like to show you some
- Teachercool!
- Bugscope Teamthose tiny little rod shaped things are bacteria -- se we are looking at germs!
- Bugscope Teamalso, mold spores are very pretty
- TeacherDo you know what kind they are? Do we have these in our kitchens?
Bugscope Teamit is said that they grow in sponges
Bugscope Teamwe do not know what they are besides being bacilli, which are the rod-shaped bacteria. There are also round ones called cocci and spiral ones called spirochetes.
- Bugscope Teamin the middle above we see a cute little mold spore
- Bugscope TeamI looked for pollen, which are similar, but did not find any earlier
- 4:58 pm
- Teachermore setae?
Bugscope Teamyes always!
- Teacherthey say "ew!"
- Bugscope Teamthis pore in the lower middle portion of where we are looking now, is called a spiracle
- TeacherWhat is it for?
- Bugscope Teamit is one of the pores insects used to breathe
- Bugscope Teamthey can open and close them, and they deliver air to organs on the inside of the insect's body
- Bugscope Teamwe are kind of lucky that insects do not have lungs like we do, so they cannot get as large as we do
- Teacherare they all over the body?
Bugscope Teamyes on the sides of each body segment
Bugscope Teamone on each side
- TeacherThank you so much for showing us all this! We have to wind down our meeting now.
- TeacherThe girls say "THANKS!"
- Bugscope TeamThank You, Everyone!
- 5:03 pm
- Bugscope TeamThis is really fun for us.
- TeacherUs too!
- Bugscope TeamThis is another fruit fly, saying Goodbye, and Thank You!
- TeacherOlive says that you are awesome! and this is awesome!
- Bugscope Teamyay!
- Bugscope TeamThank you, Olive!
- Bugscope Teamhttps://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2014-092
- Bugscope Teamthat below is a link to this session, with a transcript
- Bugscope Teamsee you next time!
- Bugscope TeamThank you again. I am going to log off now.
- Bugscope TeamBye!!!