Connected on 2015-04-16 14:00:00
from Montgomery County, New York, United States
- 1:09 pm
- Bugscope Teamspecimen chamber is pumping down
- 1:17 pm
- 1:23 pm
- 1:28 pm
- 1:33 pm
- 1:39 pm
- 1:46 pm
- 1:51 pm
- Bugscope Team we are ready to roll
- 2:03 pm
- StudentHey i'm ready
- Guesthey
- Bugscope Teamwelcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Teamthis is an ant...
- Bugscope Teamplease let us know when you have questions for us
- Teachero-o
- Studenthey
- StudentHey i'm ready duuudes
- Studentsup peeps
- Bugscope Teamsee the mandibles?
- StudentWassup
- Studentbruh
- Bugscope Teamthey are serrated like a steak knife
- Studentyes
- Bugscope Teamand the compound eyes?
- Teacherheyyyy
- Studentwhats up bruh
- Studentyolo
- Studentsup
- Studenthi
- Studenthey
- StudentOK
- Bugscope TeamHello Everyone!
- Studenthola
- Studenthi
- Bugscope Teamwe need to set this up so someone is driving...
- Bugscope TeamZeke you are the supreme ruler; you can drive the 'scope now
- Bugscope Teamhi!
- TeacherHello, I'm Ms. Wagner
Bugscope TeamHello!
Bugscope TeamOkay Ms. Wagner I made you the supreme ruler
- Bugscope Teamsorry Zeke. a very brief reign
- Bugscope Teamdo you have the controls at the top of the screen?
- Bugscope Teamabove the imae
- Bugscope Teamimage*
- 2:08 pm
- TeacherI'd like to know exactly what kind of 'scope this is
Bugscope Teamyou are using a scanning electron microscope. the electron beam scans down along the screen
- TeacherWhat vontrols should I be seeing above the image?
- Bugscope Teamwe are collecting a signal from the electrons that bounce back off the sample, so that is why we see a black and white image
- Teacher*controls
- Bugscope Teamdo you see a gray bar with magnification, focus, contrast and brightness?
- TeacherOn the bottom of the image I see 1mm and 80 x magnification
- Teacherthat is all
- Bugscope Teamwe have been running into a problem where not everybody is getting all the control. you should probably still be able to choose different images. it's ok
- Teacherok
- 2:15 pm
- TeacherAlexia would like to know why there are tiny hairs on the mandebles
Bugscope Teamthe tiny hairs are called setae, and they are sensory: they sense touch or wind or scent or hot/cold depending on which ones they are
- TeacherAnd thank you for your reply to Alexia's question
- TeacherIf I do not have the controls at the top of the image will I be able to zoom in or not
Bugscope Teamno, but i can do it if you want
- TeacherPerfect. Thank you
- Bugscope Teamit's possible, that if you log out and back in you might be able to get the controls
- TeacherHow does the ant's mouth open
Bugscope Teamthe mandibles/jaws open out like a gate
- 2:23 pm
- Teacherthe bottom of the antennas, what is going on there? Is it like our shoulders?
Bugscope Teamit's park of the beginning of the ball and socket
- TeacherThere are "holes" above the mandebles could you explain the purpose of them.
Bugscope Teamthose are called anterior tentorial pits
Bugscope Teamthey are deep but do not open into the head
Bugscope Teamthey form a sort of skeletal structure that supports the exoskeleton
Bugscope Teamthey are much like 'sprues' that are used in sculpture, internal supports
- TeacherHow do ants breath?
Bugscope Teamthey have pores in the sides of some of the body segments that are called spiracles and are there to let the insect breathe in and out, but they can also be closed to preserve moisture, for example
Bugscope Teamor simply so the ants can hold their breath
Bugscope Teamthe spiracles attach, inside the body, to tubes called tracheae that feed oxygen to the internal components of the body
- Bugscope Teamprobably most of the setae we see now (the 'hairs') are mechanosensory -- for touch
- Bugscope Teamlet us know when you would like to move to another preset -- another place that we have saved on the stub
- Bugscope Teamthe presets can be seen on the lefthand screen
- 2:29 pm
- TeacherDoes the pattern on the "skin" of the ant serve a purpose?
Bugscope Teamthe ridges seem to make them shiny
Bugscope TeamI am an ant biologist, so I probably should know this but am not completely certain. I know that ants use chemicals present on their skin as a means of communicating social status, so perhaps the ridges help carry these signals more efficiently in certain species. Thats just me speculating though
Bugscope Teamthey could also be non-adaptive
- TeacherWe decided to now look at the mosquito head (male
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of a male mosquito (they have frilly antennae)
- Bugscope Teamthe antenna we see comes out of a donut-shaped 'pedicel'
- Bugscope Teamthe little round things we see are the ommatidia -- the eye facets. the compound eyes are dried and collapsed
- Bugscope Teamthe female mosquito head looks a little better today
- 2:34 pm
- TeacherWhat exactly are we looking at on the head
Bugscope TeamThe feather like structure is the main portion of the antennae, called the Flagellum. The doughnut shaped structure, as scott mention, is the pedicel and serves as the base of the antennae
Bugscope Teamthe feather like structure of the flagellum allows male mosquitoes to sense vibrations of female wings through an internal structure at the base of the antennae called Johnston's organ
- TeacherThen we will switch to the female one, lol
Bugscope Teamyeah this is much better
Bugscope Teambut the antennae of a female are not nearly as cool
- Bugscope TeamYou can see that the female's flagella aren't as fluffy as the males since they are not using them to find members of the opposite sex
- TeacherIs the background the mosquito's wings?
Bugscope Teamthe background is carbon tape i use to stick the insects down. you can see part of a wing to the upper right
- Bugscope Teamthe proboscis holds the fascicle, which is a bundle of cutting and siphoning mouthparts
- Bugscope Teamthe scales are like potato chips
- Bugscope Teamridged
- TeacherCan we zoom in on the wing
Bugscope Teamthe wings have scales on them, which we also find on the body...
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that much of the mosquitoes body is covered in scales. Mosquitoes are the only true flies that have scales.
Bugscope Teambutterflies, moths, and silverfish also have scales
- 2:39 pm
- TeacherWhat are the scales on the wings?
Bugscope Teamthey are actually modified setae as well
Bugscope TeamOne possible function they serve is to allow mosquitoes an easy means of escaping spider webs. The scales are easily detached, so if a mosquito gets caught it can simply rip its scales off and fly away unharmed
- Bugscope Teamwe also we microsetae on the surface of the wing
Bugscope Team"see microsetae"
- Bugscope TeamI think the microsetae provide a microenvironment that helps hold the air.
- Bugscope Teamsome insect wings have many more microsetae, and they are thought to help protect against bacteria taking over
- Teacherwhere's the stinger/sucker of blood?
Bugscope Teamhere...
Bugscope Teamit is a little difficult to make out, because it has a leg or arm behind it
Bugscope Teambut the fascicle I mentioned earlier is inside of the tube we see with the conical tip
Bugscope Teamthe tube -- the proboscis -- is hollow and also has a slit all along its length
- Bugscope Teamthe part folds back
- 2:46 pm
- Teacherthe stinger/blodd sucker thing is not in the mouth?
Bugscope Teamit is inside the tube we see now
Bugscope Teamunfortunately it is rare that we get to see it out of the proboscis, which protects it
Bugscope Teamthe fascicle, which is inside, has four sharp cutting stylets, a siphon tube for blood and saliva, and another part I am not sure about
Bugscope Teamthe siphon tube sometimes looks like a calla lily, and sometimes it looks like a needle or actually a syringe needle
- Bugscope Teamonly the females suck blood
- Teacherok, thanks! now onto the water bug head
- Bugscope Teamthey need the protein from the blood to be able to successfully lay their eggs
- Teachercool - was that the scope?
- 2:53 pm
- TeacherWhere is the mouth/parts of mouth - is anything in it?
Bugscope TeamThe mouthparts are currently center screen. Beetles have chewing mouthparts and have mandibles that act similar to our jaws , but unlike our jaws their mandibles open sideways
Bugscope TeamBeetles also have a labium and a labrum that act as a bottom and top lip, respectively. These, unlike the mandibles, are not turned sideways relative to our moutparts
Bugscope TeamThis type of mouthpart plan is thought to be ancestral in insects, with the sucking mouthparts of butterflies and mosquitoes being more derived.
- TeacherOK great, on to the fruit fly please
- Bugscope TeamScott, is Drosophila? there are also true fruitflies and I cant tell the difference under the SEM. Im assuming its Drosophila though
Bugscope Team*is this
- Studenthet
- 2:58 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe part coming out at us near the bottom left is its sponging mouthpart
- Teacherwe can make out an eye, but what else are we looking at???
Bugscope TeamTo the far left just next to the eye you can see one of the antennae. This type of fly has highly modified antennae that are reduced to bases with tiny bristles coming out of them
- Teacherwhat else is on the right
Bugscope TeamPart of the thorax. you can make out the basal part of the front leg directly below the head too.
Bugscope TeamAn insects legs and wings attach to the thorax. it is the center of locomotion for insects
- Teacherthank you
- 3:04 pm
- Bugscope Teamtheir eyes allow them to see motion quickly, which is why they might be able to avoid a flyswatter or hand coming at them
- Teacherhow does it see?
Bugscope Teammany people mistakenly think that each of the facets of an insects eye individually forms an image. However, in reality they each acts like a single pixel of the whole image that the insect forms, so what they actually see more closely resembles an extremely low resolution photograph
- TeacherThank you. I could spend all day just looking at these specimens! I know this is only a one hour session, so I will say thank you very much from all my students here. This has been a tremendous treat! I tell my kids that they should learn something every day; they learned a lot today and will never look at a bug the same way again! Thank you!
Bugscope TeamNo problem :) happy to have spread the love of insects around
- 3:10 pm
- Bugscope Teamglad you like them
