Robert Hunter Elementary School
Session 2014-095

Application

School

Class

Project

Miscellaneous

Transcript

Connected on 2015-05-19 11:30:00 from Hunterdon County, New Jersey, United States

• 10:54 am
• GuestHi, this is Pat Flavin here. I have just signed on as a guest.
• Bugscope Teamhi!
• Bugscope Teamwe are making presets now

• Bugscope TeamMs F I just sent your password.

• 10:59 am
• Teachergot it - thanks.
• Bugscope Teamyay!
• Bugscope Teambee tongue, called a 'glossa'

• 11:04 am

• 11:10 am

• Bugscope Teamwe are finished with the presets, need to stock up on food for the session
• Bugscope Teamplease try driving, ensure that the setup is working for you
• Teacherok. just looked up glossa.
• Bugscope Teamwill you have students logging in today?>
• Teacheryes
• Bugscope Teamyou should see controls above the screen, and you should also be able to use the arrow to move to the lefthand screen and click on any of the presets there; whichever preset you click on should show up on the central screen -- the microscope will drive to that place
• Bugscope Teamsuper cool!
• 11:15 am

• Bugscope Teamme, testing...
• TeacherI'm going to try.
• Bugscope Teamsometimes certain presets do not 'take' when we set them

• Bugscope Teamawesome you just took the mag down

• Bugscope Teamthe female mosquito looks much better than the male today

• Bugscope Teamto the right you can see the rolypoly
• Bugscope Teamthe mag does not go as low as we would like sometimes

• Teacheroh yes.

• Bugscope Teamit is not easy to control remotely like this

• Bugscope Teamusually one of us on this end is sitting at the microscope and can help with fine focus

• 11:20 am

• Bugscope Teambeetle face with lots of stuff on it
• Bugscope Teamthe compound eyes to the left and right, and the bases of the antennae
• Bugscope Teamthe mandibles are hard to make out, in then middle, and the little pointy things are palps, mandibular and maxillary
• Bugscope Teamthere are two each of the palps, but I couldn't tell you which is which
• Bugscope Teamthey help the beetle manipulate its food and also taste it
• Teachergoing to get closer to compound eye
• Teachermandibles are the mouthparts, and the palps?
• Bugscope Teamin the background we see doublestick carbon tape, as well as (in the more fuzzy areas) silver paint
• Bugscope Teamyes the mandibles are the jaws, which open like a gate, left and right
• Bugscope Teamthe palps are accessory mouthparts
• Bugscope Teamyou should be able to click on one of the eyes, and the 'scope will center on that place

• Bugscope Teamhaha Like that!

• Bugscope Teamawesome

• Bugscope Teama few hundred ommatidia
• Bugscope Teamwhen you click to focus, it is either up or down, so if it gets worse, go the other way
• 11:26 am

• Teachernice of head, thorax, abdomen

• Bugscope Team all of the places you go are saved to your member page

• 11:31 am

• Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2014-095
• Bugscope Teamthat also saves a transcript of the session
• TeacherHow will kids log on?
• Bugscope Teamif you thake them to the bugscope home page, there will be a link to join in the session
• Bugscope Teamyes on other computers
• Bugscope Teamthe software usually recognizes the ip addresses of computers in your domain, and the kids will log on as students; they will not need a password

• Bugscope Teamother people, elsewhere in the world, can also log in, but usually they are respectful
• 11:37 am

• TeacherI have 3 groups today... first grade, 4th grade and first again. I have doubled up with my first grade classes. so we will have about 30 first graders

• Bugscope Teamthat sounds great!
• Bugscope Teamsometimes classrooms log the students in two to a computer
• Bugscope Teamonce we go over 25 or 30, depending on the connection, we may have some lag

• Bugscope Teamthis is an insect called a thrips
• Bugscope Teamit's a plant pest, and quite small
• Bugscope TeamMs F I am running upstairs for food; be right back.
• 11:46 am
• Bugscope Teamhi all!

• Bugscope Teamwe can give control of the microscope to someone when you want Ms. Flavin

• Bugscope Teamplease let us know when you have questions!

• Teachergreat

• Bugscope Teamthis bumblebee is so big we could not even see all of its head

• Bugscope Teamthe little hexagons we see now are called ommatidia. they are the individual facets of the compound eye, the lenses

• Teacherwhat is on the eye? Is it pollen?

• Bugscope Teamit looks like there is some dried liquid
• 11:51 am
• Teachercan you focus?
• Bugscope Teamdrid liquid often looks cracked like this
• Bugscope Teami don't know what kind of liquid though
• Bugscope Teamthere is apparently a thin film on the surface; we will have to check out other insects' eyes for comparison
• Bugscope TeamI tried focus, and that only let us see the crack in the thin film

• Bugscope TeamI think when you get to one of the mosquitoes you will be able to see the fine details of the ommatidia
• Bugscope Teamthat is why we put so many specimens onto the stub; we don't know just what we will see up close

• Teachera student wants to know if all insects have compound eyes
• Bugscope Teamwe can see some little things that resemble hairs on the surface of the eye

• 11:57 am
• Teacherwe were just wondering about that. what is it?

• Bugscope Teamsome insects do, and some do not; some flying insects have compound eyes, and in addition they have 'simple' eyes on the tops of their heads, called ocelli
• Bugscope Teamthere are hairs sometimes found between the facets of the eye

• Bugscope Teamespecially of flying insects

• Bugscope Teamthe hairs you see on insects help them sense what is going on around them. the hairs on the eye would help detect movement, sense of touch
• Bugscope Teamthey could help sense wind direction, so it can be a better flyer

• Bugscope Teamants usually have compound eyes, although some ants do not have eyes at all; ant eyes are often small and have very few ommatidia (the facets), for example they might have twelve ommatidia
• Bugscope Teamthis is totally cool!
• Teacheris this the speciment you were talking about Cate?
• Bugscope Teamwe are looking at the face of a mosquito, and it is a female -- the ones that bite

• Bugscope Teamthis is the mosquito
• Bugscope Teamthe little round things are the mosquito's ommatidia
• Bugscope Teamthe hairs you see here are on the antenna
• Bugscope Teamif we go up close we can see fine detail, I think
• Bugscope Teamthere may be some hairs between the facets, but they either fell off or are short.
• Teacherwhat are antenna's used for?

• 12:02 pm
• Bugscope Teamthey can be used to communicate or to help locate where others are
• Teachercan you drive for awhile
• Teacherwhat is that on the right side?
• Bugscope Teamthe antennae have chemoreceptors on them, so they can be used to smell chemicals in the air; they also have, especially in the males, the ability to pick up the frequency of the wingbeats of other insects
• Bugscope Teamthe thing going up is a leg, the thing cutting across the corner is the proboscis- the mouthpart

• Bugscope Teamwe can drive -- please feel free to tell us where to go, occasionally
• Bugscope Teamthe curved thing is the proboscis, which has the biting mechanism inside it
• Teacherwhere is the proboscis?
• Bugscope Teamit is covered with tiny scales that are also on many other of the mosquito's body parts
• Bugscope Teamthe proboscis is coming toward us and then veers off to the right

• Teachercould you show the bee tongue

• Teacherhow many balls are on the compound eye
• Bugscope Teamthis is the bee tongue, which is called a 'glossa'\
• Teacherwhat is the tongue used for?
• 12:07 pm
• Teacherare they hairs on the tongue?
• Bugscope Teamthe number of balls, or facets, of the compound eye varies from 10 or so to over 32,000 in the case of a large hornet or a dragonfly
• Bugscope Teamthe amount of facets on an eye is very dependent on if it flies or not.
• Bugscope Teaman ant that might live in the ground will only have around 20 or less on a compound eye
• Teacherdoes every insect have hair?
• Bugscope Teamthey are kind of like hairs; they help the bee's tongue stick into a flower and also help pull the pollen and nectar out of the flower
• Bugscope Teamyes- if they didnt, they wouldnt be able to feel anything, taste/smell anything
• Bugscope Teamevery insect has something like that; they are called setae, or bristles, or trichae, or spines, or just hairs
• Teacheris the hair called setae?
• Bugscope Teamthe scales we see are actually setae, and there are setae -- or microsetae -- on the little pads on many insects' arms
• Bugscope Teamyes it is
• Bugscope Teamyes the things that resemble hair are called setae
• Bugscope Teamwe are not supposed to call them hair because hair is one of the distinguishing features of mammals
• Teacherwhat is the structure at the tip? can we get closer?
• Bugscope Teambut of course even entomologists call them hair'

• 12:12 pm

• Bugscope Teamthis is the head of a small beetle, and up close there in the middle, Cate found a mite!

• Teacheris this the tip of the bee's tongue?
• Bugscope Teamnot anymore
• Bugscope Teamthis is a mite on part of a flat beetle

• Bugscope Teamwith some dirt around it

• Teacherdoes the bee lose it stinger when it stings someone?
• Bugscope Teamhoneybees lost their stingers if they sting mammals, like us, because we have thick skin; if they sting other insects, they do not lose their stingers
• Bugscope Team'lose'
• Teacheris this a dust mite?
• Teacherwhat is the structure at one o'clock?
• Bugscope Teamthe honeybee's stinger has little barbs on it that get caught in our skin, and the whole stinger gets pulled out of the honeybee, leaving an open hole in its body, so it dies
• 12:17 pm
• Bugscope Teamit could be a dust mite, though they tend to look more softbodied than this
• Bugscope Teami think that is some sort of seta sticking out of the mite?
• Teacherare we seeing legs? a student called them tentacles?
• Teacherare we seeing setae on the top?
• Teacherwhat is the line across the top?
• Teacherhow long does a mite live?
• Bugscope Teamthey probably live for a few months; there is not a lot of information available about them

• Bugscope Teamit has a kind of crease in its back, and we can see tiny setae on it as well, as you noticed
• Bugscope Teamthose were its thick, sturdy legs

• Bugscope Teaminsects and similar arthropods, like mites, have an exoskeleton, like a shell, or like a suit of armor; think of a lobster or a crab
• 12:22 pm
• Bugscope Teambecause they have a shell, like that, they cannot feel what is touching them as well as we can, because we have skin with nerve endings in it

• Bugscope Teamthe setae stick through the shell, or exoskeleton, and often, if they are the right kind of setae, attach to nerves beneath the exoskeleton
• Teacherhow many legs does the roly poly have?
• Bugscope Teamusually they have seven pairs of legs

• Bugscope Teamsome of the legs are missing!
• Teacheris this an insect then? always thought 6 legs
• Bugscope Teamspeaking of lobsters, rolypolies are crustaceans that live on the land!
• Teacherwhat are the lines?
• Bugscope Teamyes insects always have six legs, as adults, and they have a head, a thorax to which the legs are attached, an abdomen (like a stomach), and two antennae
• Teacherdo roly polies have shells?
• Bugscope Teamthe lines on the outer part of the body show us where the segments are, so the rolypoly can roll into a little ball when it feels threatened
• Bugscope Teamit really is very much like armor
• Teacherwhere is the head?
• Bugscope Teamrolyplies have antennae, but they are often broken off. lobsters have antennae, too, but they have two pairs of them
• Bugscope Teamit towards the top of the screen
• 12:27 pm

• Teacheris the stinger called probiscus?
• Bugscope Teamthe stinger is not a proboscis, which is sometimes what a nose or trunk is called, like on an elephant
• Bugscope Teamthe stinger, instead, is often also an ovipositor, which means it is an 'egg depositor.'

• Bugscope Teamthere are thousands of tiny wasps that inject their eggs into a huge variety of insects, every kind of insect and every life stage of insect

• Bugscope Teamtheir stingers are also used to inject their eggs

• Bugscope Teamwe see the fruitfly's head, to the lower right, and its thorax, with a hole in it through which it breathes
• Bugscope Teamthe compound eye has a few hundred to a thousand ommatidia, or facets
• 12:33 pm
• Bugscope Teamthe top of the fruitfly's head has three tiny domes on it, called ocelli

• Bugscope Teamwe can see one of the ocelli clearly now
• Bugscope Teamindividually, each is called an ocellus
• Bugscope Teamthere are usually three of them, and they are 'simple' eyes that help the insect orient with the sun, so it does not get lost easily.

• TeacherWe now have our 4th graders with us.
• Bugscope Teamthis is an ocellus, on the head of a fruitfly, magnified 4112 times
• Bugscope Teamthe students may type questions to us, if you wish.

• Bugscope Teamthis is the head of a rove beetle, of which there are many kinds
• 12:38 pm
• Bugscope Teamyou can see its mandibles, and its antennae, and you can also see its compound eyes, which are kind of streamlined into the shape of the head

• Bugscope Teamthe sharp things are its mandibles, or jaws

• Bugscope Teamwhen we look at samples using the scanning electron microscope (SEM) we do not see color; instead we see things in greyscale, in black and white
• Bugscope Teamthat is because the electrons we are beaming at the samples, in a vacuum like inside a lightbulb, are much smaller than visible or even ultraviolet light.
• Teacherwhat exactly is an ecellus?
• Bugscope Teaman ocellus is a single 'simple eye.' usually there are three on the top of a flying insect's head
• Bugscope Teamalthough not on a beetle's head; usually they are on bee or wasp or flying ant or fly heads.
• GuestHow powerful is an electron microscope?
• Guestwhere is the eye
• 12:43 pm
• GuestCan we zoom in on the compound eye?
• Guesthi there, what else is there to know about these creatures?
• Bugscope Teamthis microscope can magnify well over 200,000x
• Guestwow! that is a lot!
• GuestCan you zoom into the eye?
• Bugscope Teamthe eyes are on either side of the head, in the middle, pretty much, of the image we see now

• Guestwow!

• Guestnow does an ocellus gets its name
• Bugscope Teamthere are a lot of different types of rove beetle; I believe this is a predator
• Guestcan you show us a picture 200,00*
• Guestwhat do they eat
• GuestAre there any signs of a predator rove beetle from a regular rove beetle?
• Bugscope Teamocellus is said to be Latin, the diminutive version of oculus, which means eye

• Guestwhat are the little hairs on the body?
• Bugscope Teamthe mouthparts of an omnivorus rove beetle would likely be less sharp

• GuestIs there different bugs that you can show like a fly?

• Guestwhat is that?

• Bugscope Teamrove beetles eat small insects and mites
• Guestwhere dose it live?

• Bugscope Teamthey look like earwigs, those pincher bugs
• GuestWhat are the beettle's prey?

• Bugscope Teambut without the pinchers

• Bugscope Teambacteria!

• 12:48 pm

• Guestcan you show us a picture of a 200,000* beetle?
• GuestWhat are the lumps on the legs?
• GuestWhat is that?
• GuestWere are they lokaded
• Bugscope Teamthere may be some bacteria
• Bugscope Teamthis is only about 63,000x
• Bugscope Teamthey are on the edge of the mandible, where it fits into the head
• Bugscope Teamyou can find rove beetles in a lot of places. they like dark, damp places. like if you look under a rotted log or a rock
• Bugscope Teamthe images do not look good because we would normally go to a much shorter working distance to see something like this.
• Bugscope Teamnow, at a lower mag, you can see the bacteria more easily
• Bugscope TeamI will show you what the inside of the microscope looks like...
• Bugscope Teamnow we see the specimen chamber, which is under vacuum
• Guestwhat eats the rove beetle?
• Bugscope Teamthe insects and other critters are lying on a platter there that is 1 3/4 inches in diameter
• Bugscope Teamthe bumblebee is in the front, to the left
• Guesthow big is a rove beetle exactly?
• Bugscope Teamif we wanted to have better resolution, for a high magnification image, the platter we see now would be closer to the top of the chamber
• 12:54 pm
• GuestWhat is the most facinating bug that you have magnified?
• Teacheris this still the beetle? what part are we viewing?
• Bugscope Teamrove beetles vary in size and can be an inch or more long
• Bugscope Teamwe are near the eye
• Bugscope Teamthe compound eye is to the very right of the screen
• Bugscope Teamyou can see some of the facets
• Bugscope Teamthis is the joint between the jaw and the head, near the eye, as Cate said
• Bugscope Teamnow you can see where we were lucky enough to find those bacteria, which are about 2 micrometers long.

• Guestwhat eats the rove beetle?

• Bugscope Teambats, rats, voles, badgers
• GuestHow common is it to find a Rove Beatle
• Guestwhat is the pincheny puff ball
• Bugscope Teamthere are many different types; I think they are fairly common
• Guestwhat is that spike ball?
• Bugscope Teamthat is a super cool looking pollen grain
• Bugscope Teamunlike others we have seen in the past

• Bugscope Teamthe bumblebee is covered with fine setae, which look like hair

• 12:59 pm
• Bugscope Teamall the little balls are pollen grains
• Bugscope Teamthis bee did a good job

• Bugscope Teammost of the bees and ants you see are female because they do most of the work
• Bugscope Teammales are kind of lazy in the insect world
• Bugscope Teamthis is one of the claws of the bee
• Bugscope Teamhere is another one...
• Bugscope Teamyou can see that some of the setae above the actual claws are branched, like pine trees
• Guestwhat are the claws used for
• Bugscope Teamthe claws are used to grasp and hold things, much like what we use our hands for, except bees cannot type, for example
• 1:05 pm
• GuestWhat were the needle-like spiky things in the previous image?

• Bugscope Teamparts of the claw or the skinnier things are the setae
• Bugscope Teamthe spikey things that were not on the pollen grain were setae, which the tiny hair-like things are called; is that what you were asking about?

• Bugscope Teamdo you recognize this?

• Bugscope Teamyay!
• Guestyes
• Guestyes
• Bugscope Teamthe things that look like furry donuts are the pedicels -- the bases of the antennae
• GuestYes
• Bugscope Teamthe little round things all around the face are the ommatidia -- the eye facets
• Bugscope Teamso this one will bite you
• Bugscope Teamlet's go to a higher magnification
• GuestWe have to leave thank you for teaching us!
• Bugscope Teamwhat? no!
• Bugscope TeamThank you!
• 1:10 pm
• Guestthank you
• Bugscope Teamsee you next year!
• TeacherOUr next group is coming in about 20 minutes. 30 first graders.
• 1:20 pm

• Bugscope Teamawesome see you soon!
• 1:32 pm
• TeacherOur students are here! We are ready to learn and see the insects!
• Bugscope Teamwelcome back!

• Bugscope Teamhere is the compound eye on a fruitfly
• TeacherHow many hexagons are in one compound eye?
• Bugscope Teamhere there looks to be hundreds of them on one eye
• Bugscope Teamflying insects will have more than the ones that live most of their life in the dirt
• TeacherHow many eyes are on this insect?
• Bugscope Teamthere are a total of 2 compound eyes, along with 3 simple eyes near the back top of its head called ocelli
• Bugscope Teamthe ocelli help to read where the light is in the sky so it can navigate better- kind of like a built-in GPS

• Bugscope Teamso there are five eyes, and each of the compound eyes has probably a few hundred facets
• 1:37 pm

• TeacherCan we see the simple eyes?
• Bugscope Teamto the right we can see a bump on the forehead that is one of the ocelli
• Bugscope Teamit looks like a spider eye, like a little dome

• TeacherWe were discussing the setai on the insect? How does the insect know when they should move?
• Bugscope Teamthe eyes of larval insects, like caterpillars, are called stemmata; they look like this
• Bugscope Teamalso it is cool that we can see a scale from another insect in the background, sort of
• Bugscope Teamwind currents from your hand swinging through the air can let the insect know to move; but also, one big benefit of compound eyes is that the insect can see motion very very quickly
• TeacherDoes the fruit fly have a skeleton?
• Bugscope Teamcompound eyes are often dome-like, themselves, and they let the insect know what is all around it
• TeacherWe are seeing the magnification of the fruit fly. How big is it in real life?
• Bugscope Teamthe fruitfly does not have an internal skeleton, like we do. in fact, insects are invertebrates, which means they do not have backbones, but it really means that they do not have bones at all!
• 1:43 pm
• Bugscope Teaminsects and similar arthropods like rolypolies and spiders have exoskeletons, which means they have something like a shell of a shrimp
• Bugscope Teamin real life the fruitfly is quite small, like 5 or 6 millimeters, less than a quarter of an inch long
• Bugscope Teamit is a few millimeters big

• TeacherDo flies have homes?

• Bugscope Teambecause insects do not have skin -- instead they have an exoskeleton, like a shell -- they need to have something that lets them know what is touching them, and what smells there are and where they are coming from, and whether something is hot or cold. that is what the setae are for

• Bugscope Teamthey do not have homes; they do not build hives

• Bugscope Teamthere are so many different kinds of flies that someone could likely name a type that has something like a home, but I do not know of one

• TeacherAmazing!!
• Bugscope Teamthe tiny projections make the tongue like a brush\
• 1:49 pm

• Bugscope Teaminsects are much like us; they need to be able to move around and eat and have kids and stuff, but they do it a bit differently than we do

• TeacherDo they have blood? They are so tiny.
• TeacherDo fruit flies eat fruit?
• Bugscope Teamthe blood in insects is a fluid called hemolymph
• Bugscope Teamthey eat some of the liquids that are around when fruit starts to rot
• Bugscope Teamhemolymph is clear, but when you squish a bug you also often get the contents of its abdomen
• Bugscope Teamlike when you leave bananas in your house a little long, than you might start to notice fruitflies
• TeacherIf a bee stings you, does the stinger come off? I heard that they will die after they sting you.
• Bugscope Teamthey are attracted, often, to things that are sweet; the flowers use sweet things like nectar to attract them, and while they are there the bees accumulate pollen, whether they quite meant to, which sometimes they do, or not
• TeacherCan you drive for a little bit? We wanted to see some of your coolest slides.
• 1:54 pm
• TeacherDo they have teeth? Can you show us the mouth?
• Bugscope Teaminsects often have a very good sense of smell, and it is some of those setae that help them smell the air and also taste things by touching them
• Bugscope Teamthey have mandibles, which act as teeth, but are jaws to us
• Bugscope Teamour mouths open up and down, theirs open out like a gate
• Bugscope Teamthey do not have teeth, but the edges of insect mandibles are often hardened with minerals that help keep them from wearing out

• Bugscope Teamthese are the crossed mandibles of a weevil

• Bugscope Teamthey are sideways, a bit

• TeacherInteresting!

• Bugscope Teammaybe the rove beetle has the best view of mandibles

• TeacherThey are like pinchers.

• TeacherWhat are the rope like things that go above their mandibles?

• 2:00 pm
• Bugscope Teamthe rope-like things are setae that let the insect know when something is just about within the grasp of its mandibles
• Bugscope Teamif we were looking at a trapjaw ant, they have what are called trigger hairs that are much the same as these

• Bugscope Teamyes they are like pinchers!

• TeacherHow long did you go to school to become an entomologist? You know so much about insects.
• Bugscope Teamhere is a palp, which is an accessory mouthpart that has lots of chemosensors on it -- like tastebuds!

• Bugscope Teammean looking little dude
• TeacherDo fruit flies have brains?
• Bugscope Teamyes they do!
• Bugscope Teamyes. they are probably more simple minded- driven by the need to eat and reproduce
• Bugscope Teamthe people who study them have noted that a large part of the brain is devoted to vision
• 2:06 pm
• Teacherthank you very much

• Bugscope TeamThank you, Everyone!
• Bugscope TeamThis is a going-away image, I guess.
• Bugscope Teamthank you!
• TeacherThis was an incredible experience for all - teachers included. We appreciate you guys.
• Bugscope Teamthese are crochets, which are the tiny claws on the prolegs of larval insects
• Bugscope Teamlarval insects (caterpillars) have six legs, but they also sometimes have extra legs, called prolegs
• Bugscope TeamThank you again.