Connected on 2015-03-23 09:30:00
from Sublette County, Wyoming, United States
- 8:47 am
- Bugscope Teamputto
- Bugscope Teamputting the sample in the microscope now
- Bugscope Teamhaha That is the name of a single cherub.
- 8:59 am
- 9:05 am
- 9:11 am
- 9:16 am
- 9:22 am
- 9:28 am
- Bugscope Teamhi!
- Teacherhi
- Bugscope Teamwe are just going to finish up the next few presets
- Teacherok
- Bugscope Teamare students going to log in or are you using a smartboard/projector setup?
- Teacherprojector setup
- 9:33 am
- Bugscope Teamwe gave you controls
- Teacherthanks
- Bugscope Teamyou can select a preset to start with by clicking on the blue arrow to the left
- Teacherok
- 9:38 am
- TeacherWe are on the trapjaw ant- when i click on the mouth nothing happens
- Bugscope Teamtry again
- Bugscope Teamsorry it took us a while to complete the presets today
- Bugscope Teamand I forgot to give you control
- Bugscope Teamthis is a trapjaw ant from Brazil
- Bugscope Teamand this is the abdomen of a ladybug larvae, from the dorsal side
- Bugscope Teamwe can see where it sat on an aphid
- Bugscope Teamthey are often, on the ventral side, covered with aphids; it's like they have very poor table manners
- Bugscope Teamor they stick the aphids to themselves as trophies
- Bugscope Teamthey eat aphids as adults as well
- Bugscope Teamaphids are true bugs, so they have piercing/sucking mouthparts like cicadas, stinkbugs, ambush bugs...
- 9:44 am
- Bugscope Teamwe also put a ladybug larva on the stub with the ventral side up, so you can see its face
- Bugscope Teamplease let us know when you have questions for us!
- Teacherok
- Bugscope Teamwhen they are larvae, as caterpilars, many of their features are relatively unrefined
- Teacherdo you know how many days old the larvae is?
- Bugscope Teamwe can see the four palps -- the accessory mouthparts, but the antennae are short and stubby, and the eyes, called stemmata, are quite small
- Teacherdoes it have eyes?
Bugscope Teamit has I think five eyes on each side of its head, and they are simple eyes, not the compound eyes it will have as an adult
- Bugscope Teamthat little wrinkled thing is one of the stemmata -- one of the eyes
- 9:49 am
- Bugscope Teamwe can tell male from female mosquitoes by their antennae
- TeacherWhat is coming out of the mosquito head that looks like hair?
Bugscope Teamthose are the antennae
- Teachercan you show us the sucking mouth parts?
Bugscope TeamI am sorry -- on none of today's mosquitoes can we see the fascicle, which is the closely appressed set of biting mouthparts
Bugscope Teamthe fascicle is inside the proboscis, which we can show you
- Bugscope Teammale mosquitoes do not bite...
- TeacherWhat are the "scales" by the antannae?
Bugscope Teamthose are indeed scales. they are found on moths, mosquitoes, butterflies, and silverfish, plus a few other insects
- 9:54 am
- Bugscope Teamscales confer protection from spiders to moths, mosquitoes, butterflies, and silverfish because they come off so easily, they will stick to the web and the insect has a chance to escape
- Bugscope Teamthis is fruitfly, and you can see two kinds of eyes here
- Bugscope Teamyou can also see both portions of the antennae
- Teacherwhere is the second set of eyes?
Bugscope Teamon top of the head we see three ocelli, which are simple eyes; they help the fly orient itself with the sun so it does not get lost
- Teacherare the atennae right in front of us? in the middle of the face- oval shaped?
Bugscope Teamyes they are!
- Bugscope Teamthere is a pad-shaped part, which has a version of the Johnston's organ in it, and there is a branched part
- Bugscope Teamthe Johnston's organ, which is what makes the male mosquito antennae so ornate, helps the insect tune in the wingbeats of the females
- Bugscope Teamwe run a lab with a variety of microscopes that people on campus can be trained to use
- 9:59 am
- Teachermy kids want to know if you are a student at the university or a professor
Bugscope Teamwe work at the university but are not students or professors. You could call us academic professionals.
Bugscope Teamyeah that is what the University calls us. we call ourselves electron microscopists
- Teacherawesome- so lab technicians
Bugscope Teamwe train Master's, PhD, and other students, as well as professors, to use a variety of sophisticated microscopes in order to do their research
- Teacherhow do fruit flies eat? sucking mouth parts? or?
Bugscope Teamtheir mouthparts are sponging mouthparts. it soaks up the liquids after it's saliva has made it liquify
- Bugscope Teamthe sponging mouthparts seem to be broken off here; we may be able to see them on another fly
- Bugscope Teamthis fly is so big we cannot see its whole head at one time
- Bugscope Teamwe can see its mandibles, near the bottom of the image
- Bugscope Teamdragonflies are super fast predators
- Bugscope Teamyou can barely make out some of the facets of the compound eyes, on either side
- Bugscope Teamthe facets of the compound eyes are called ommatidia, and dragonflies may have as many as 32,000 per eye!
- 10:05 am
- Bugscope Teamgood job driving!
- Teacherthanks
- Bugscope Teamthe antennae!
- Bugscope Teamthey are so small
- TeacherWhat are the two tube looking things by the eyes?
Bugscope Teamthose might be where the antennae were and broke off. they have very small antennae
- Teacherok
- Bugscope Teamyou can take the mag up anytime you want
- Teacherthe three mountains between the antennae?
Bugscope TeamI am not sure if those are ocelli or not. ocelli usually come in threes, but they are usually on the top, or back of the head
- Bugscope Teamthere should be an area in the top left edge of the image that says magnification
- Teacherremind me how to increase the magnification?
Bugscope Teamat the top of your screen you should have controls for magnification, focus, and contrast/brightness
- 10:10 am
- TeacherI don't have any right now....
- Teacherjust more info
- Bugscope Teamas Cate says, magnification should be on the left
- TeacherIt just shows the "currently near the dragonfly head" on left and then "more info" on right
- Bugscope Teammaybe refresh your browser
- Bugscope Teamthis is a super small beetle
- Bugscope Teamin the meantime, or if it doesn't give you controls, we can change the mag for you
- Teacherok- can you magnify the mouth parts of the tiny beetle more?
- Bugscope Teamthe background we see is carbon tape -- the doublestick tape we sticj the insects to
- Bugscope Teamnow we see the mandibles, which open left and right like a gate
- Bugscope Teamthe one on the left is on top of the other one, and it is forked
- Bugscope Teamthe 'hinges' of the mandibles are close to the compound eyes
- 10:15 am
- Teacherand below mandible?
Bugscope Teamit is difficult to make out on this beetle, but there are almost always two sets of palps, which are accessory mouthparts
- Bugscope Teaminsect mouths are complicated
- Bugscope Teamthis is the face of a cucumber beetle
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the palps better
- Bugscope Teamthere is a top flat plate over the mandibles called a clypeus that we can see now
- Bugscope Teamwhen an insect is eating, all of that stuff is moving at once
- 10:20 am
- Bugscope Teamthe palps are the pointy things that resemble small arms or legs
- Teachercool
- Bugscope Teamthis is the tip of one of the palps, which have things like tastebuds on them
- Teachercan you zoom out again?
- Bugscope Teamthere is another palp to the lower left of where we are now
- Bugscope Teamyou can see it now
- Bugscope Teamthere are mandibular and maxillary palps
- Bugscope Teamthe mandible in a human is the lower jaw, and the maxilla is the upper jaw, attached to the skull
- 10:25 am
- Teachercan u show us simple eyes?
Bugscope Teamthese are the ocelli -- the simple eyes on the top of the fruitfly's head
Bugscope Teamthey are said not to allow the insect to see much more than shadows and light
- Bugscope Teamwe xc
- Bugscope Teamooops
- Bugscope Teamit looks similar to a dust mite. they are soft bodied
- Teacherdo you know if this is a dust mite?
Bugscope Teamyes it looks similar to a dustmite
- 10:31 am
- Bugscope Teamwhen we see dustmites they are often dry and shriveled up; the mites we have in the microscope today have been critical point dried to keep them from shriveling uip
- Teacherdo you have a dorsal view of a mite?
Bugscope Teamyes we can take a look at the oribatid mite
Bugscope Teamor this one..
- Teachercan you zoom into the mouth for us? and do mites have eyes?
Bugscope Teamthey sometimes have eye spots
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that we have trouble getting them on the stub in the right orientation because they are so small
- Teacheri have a diff group of kids in so showing the ladybug larvae
- Bugscope Teamhey super cool
- 10:38 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is the dorsal side of a ladybug larva, showing its spines
- Bugscope Teamladybug larvae are predators, like the adult versions of ladybugs, and they both like to eat aphids
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of another ladybug larvae, seen from the ventral side
- Bugscope Teamyou can see its mandibles
- Bugscope Teamnow we see three of the four palps, and we see a forked mandible in the middle of the image
- Teacherthe kids want to zoom in on the palp that looks like an eyeball
- Teacherwow
- Bugscope Teamthe tip of the palp has chemosensory setae on it, like tiny tastebuds
- Teacherare those sensors of some type on end of palps?
- Teacherok
- Bugscope Teamthey help the insect taste its prospective food
- Bugscope Teamthey also -- the whole palp does this -- help push food toward the mouth
- 10:43 am
- Teacherwhat are the spikes on the outside of the palp
Bugscope Teamwe do not know for sure but most of them are likely mechanosensory setae -- they are touch-sensitive
- Bugscope Teamsometimes on palps we also find tiny pores that we believe are also chemosensory but do not require being touched -- they sense airborne smells
- Bugscope Teamthe male mosquito
- Bugscope Team's eye is collapsed a bit
- Bugscope Teamthe donut-like piece is called a pedicel, and it is the base of the antenna
- Teacherare the hairs on the antennae sensory? or chemosensory?
Bugscope Teamprobably a combination of the two; also, they are sensitive to the sound of the wingbeats of female mosquitoes of the same species. the antennae help the males find the females.
- 10:48 am
- Bugscope Teamwe are now imaging one of the ommatidia on the compound eye of the male mosquito
- Bugscope Teamthe features we see are submicron -- we are imaging on the nanoscale
- Bugscope Teamthis is a female mosquito
- 10:53 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is the tip of the proboscis, which we see is covered with scales and thus not capable of piercing your skin
- Bugscope Teaminside this long tube is the fascicle, which has four cutting stylets, the siphon tube for blood and saliva, and another component I'm not sure about.
- Bugscope Teamthis is a tiny round mite called an Oribatid, and below it is a springtail, which looks like an insect but is not quite really an insect
- Bugscope Teamspringtails are called Collembola
Bugscope Teamthey are found in leaflitter
- 10:59 am
- Bugscope Teamsome insects have mouthparts that produce web, and we wonder whether these do as well -- they resemble spinnerettes, on a spider
- Bugscope Teamthe Oribatid mite has scales stuck to its cuticle
- Bugscope Teamthis is a plier ant, which feeds on springtails
- Bugscope Teamis anyone there?...
- 11:04 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is the compound eye of the plier ant
- Bugscope Teamwe can see that it has maybe 15 or so ommatidia, or individual eye facets
- Bugscope Teamit has fearsome mandibles, like a mean dog, but they open in a different plane
- Bugscope Teamthe mandibles help it hold the springtails it likes to eat
- Bugscope Teamthis is the underside of a plier ant's mandibles
- Bugscope Teamwe can see the palps now
- 11:09 am
- TeacherHI- We got disconnected our internet went out district wide
Bugscope Teamwhen you look at the transcript, later, you will see the images and text from when you were disconnected
- Bugscope Teamthis is an aphid -- a flying aphid
- Bugscope Teamits piercing/sucking mouthparts are pointed up, toward us
- Teachergreat
- Bugscope Teamaphids are plant pests
- 11:15 am
- Bugscope Teampollen!
- Bugscope Teamthis may be ragweed pollen, but we are not sure
- Bugscope Teamthis is a larger ant than most of the others
- Bugscope Teamragweed type pollen are those spikey burr-like balls
- Bugscope Teamyou can see one of its compound eyes
- Bugscope Teamno. it's like one of those black ants you might see.
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of its forelimbs. we can see its antenna comb
- Teacherawesome
- Bugscope Teamwhen its leg folds a bit, it can hold the antennae between the parts we see and clean them
- 11:20 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is a butterfly wing, up close where we can see the individual scales
- Bugscope Teamthey look like potato chips, like Ruffles
- Bugscope Teamthe ridges are so small that they interfere with visible light and cause other colors to appear
- Bugscope Teamthis is pretty high mag. we can see three of the ridges, and each is about one bacterium wide
- 11:28 am
- Bugscope Teamcool looking ant
- Bugscope Teamplease let us know if you have questions, or if we should quit...
- Bugscope Teamwe can shut down.. we've collected a lot of images and added comments
- 11:34 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is the haltere of a fruit fly
- Teacherok- we are having problems with our internet again. But I think we are good
- 11:41 am
- Teacherhow do I get back to the transcript for a future class? to show them?
