Connected on 2019-09-13 13:00:00
from Medford, Wisconsin, United States
- 12:10 pm
- Bugscope Teamsetting up now
- Bugscope TeamScott is making presets.
- 12:17 pm
- 12:23 pm
- 12:29 pm
- 12:35 pm
- 12:41 pm
- Bugscope TeamWe are all done setting up!
- Bugscope TeamHi there!
- 12:47 pm
- TeacherHello
- TeacherDo you have any of our mosquitoes
- Bugscope Teamall of these presets are just a snapshot of locations where the bugs you sent us are
- Bugscope TeamGood afternoon! We're ready when you guys are.
- Bugscope Teami have the mosquitoes on here. One of them turned out to be this small fly, and there is a male mosquito on there
- TeacherWe will be ready in a few minutes
- Bugscope TeamTotally cool
- TeacherGreat we have been studing mosquitoes life cycle
- Bugscope Teami thought this small fly was a mosquito but the microscope shows it doesn't have mosquito antennae
- Bugscope TeamNice samples
- 12:52 pm
- 1:01 pm
- Bugscope TeamMale mosquito
- Teacherwe are all ready
- Teacherare you there?
- Bugscope TeamYep!
- Bugscope Teamthe way you know a mosquito is male or female is the males have these super hairy antenna
- Bugscope TeamWe're looking at a mosquito now. Feathery antennas, so it's male.
- 1:06 pm
- Bugscope Teamthey're super fancy as well, and I understand that they help the male mosquitos sense the wingbeats of the female mosquitos
- Bugscope TeamOnly the females bite. They need blood for their eggs.
- Teacherare there any other differences between male and female mosquitos?
Bugscope Teamthe males don't drink blood. They may drink from plants or they may not have mouthparts at all
- Teacherwhere is the proboscis on this one?
Bugscope Teamthe antenna may be in the way
Bugscope TeamIt's the long one tilted like \ this.
- Bugscope Teamoh i see it I think it looks like one of the legs
- Bugscope TeamI guess you clicked the "small fly" preset and then zoomed in?
- 1:11 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis appears to have been the preset that shows the haltere, on the left; it must have moved
- Bugscope Teamwe can see where the wing attaches, and because we can see the haltere, we know we are looking at a fly
- Bugscope Teamflies have only two wings
- Bugscope Teamnow we can see the compound eye; its facets are called ommatidia
- Bugscope TeamJust a moment -- the scope hiccuped.
- Teacherokay!
- 1:16 pm
- Bugscope TeamAbout three minutes. Sorry!!
- Bugscope TeamThe advantage of a visible-light microscope is that it's just a bunch of lenses and knobs. An electron microscope has a pile of computers as well. There's more to go wrong...
- Bugscope TeamMrs Beyer we had to design new software for this new microscope. It has been a bit tricky.
- Teacherthat's okay we understand!
- Bugscope TeamCamille and Cate are bringing it up again. If you run out of time today we can reschedule you.
- Bugscope TeamWe can also collect some images and send them to you.
- Bugscope TeamWe found that the ant has a tiny mite on its abdomen. Really a nice set of samples...
- Bugscope TeamAnd we're live again.
- Bugscope TeamMrs Beyer can you see the sample now?
- Bugscope TeamWhich sample, sorry?
- 1:22 pm
- Bugscope TeamHere's the mite on the ant.
- Bugscope Teamthis is so cool
- Bugscope Teama mite on a tiny ant's abdomen
- Bugscope Teamit has little arms, and in the middle is its tiny head
- Bugscope TeamWe're not sure what kind it is.
- Teacherdoes it have an exoskeleton?
- Bugscope Teamwe see mites that look like this on earwigs as well, and sometimes on other insects
- Teacherdo you know what type of mite this is?
Bugscope Teamnot sure what type it is
- Teacherdoes the ant have hairs?
Bugscope Teamyes most insects will have hairs, or setae, all over them to help them sense what is going on around them
- Bugscope TeamThere, Scott focused the mite sharper.
- Bugscope Teamwe can take you back to see the rest of the ant -- the mite is not going anywhere
- Bugscope TeamBugs also often have hairs all over their eyes.
- 1:27 pm
- Teacherdo ants have blood?
Bugscope Teamyes and they have a heart but it isn't like ours
- Bugscope Teaminsects and other arthropods like them have an exoskeleton, which is sort of like if you were wearing armor all of the time
- Teacherhow many lenses are on the fly eye?
- Teacherwhat are the little hairs poking out of the eyes of the fly eye?
Bugscope TeamThey might be for sensing the wind.
- Bugscope Teamthe tiny hairs, which entomologists call setae, connect to nerves inside of the body and send sensory signals to the insect
- Bugscope Teamthe setae on the eye, for example, sense touch and thus also wind
- Bugscope Teamsome of the larger setae we see now help the insect sense its own arms and legs; they help it sense where its own body parts are
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that the limbs have long setae coming out of them
- Bugscope Teamthis is so cool
- Bugscope Teamthe last five or so segments on an arm or leg are called tarsi, or tarsomeres
- Bugscope TeamThe fancy word for claws is "tarsi"
- 1:32 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe claws we see operate when the insect moves an internal muscle that is called an unguitractor
- Bugscope Teamhairs = setae, tiny holes = spiracles, all sorts of special names.
- Bugscope Teamthese are foreclaws that are holding each other, like someone at a reception trying to figure out what to do with her/his hands
- Bugscope Teamnow we see that these are hindclaws, not foreclaws, as I had thought
- Teacherwhat do they eat?
- Bugscope Teambehind them is the abdomen, on the ventral side
- Bugscope Teamif we mounted beetles with the dorsal side up we would see the elytra, which cover the wings, but it would not be very interesting
- Bugscope TeamIn my garden they munch on my rose bushes.
- 1:38 pm
- Bugscope TeamWith beetles I usually can't tell the difference.
- Teacherhow do you tell the boys and girls apart?
Bugscope Teami think with a lot of beetles it is difficult. There is some laser tweezering involved to open them up and see their insides
- Bugscope TeamI think that was a sarcoptiform mite; still looking
- Bugscope TeamAnt head!
- Bugscope Teamthis is close up on the daddy longlegs body, which was a bit dried, kind of a jumble of parts
- Bugscope TeamBase of the claw of the spider.
- Teacherwhat is a spiracle?
- 1:43 pm
- Bugscope TeamThis is your small fly's abdomen, with a pore aka spiracle.
- Teacherhow many exoskeleton sections are there to a beetle?
- Bugscope TeamIt's like a breathing hole.
- Bugscope TeamAround it some of the hairs got broken off.
- Bugscope TeamNow you can better see how some of the long hairs are there, others snapped off at their bases.
- Bugscope TeamHere's one of the snapped off hairs.
- Teacherdoes a spider have only one heart?
Bugscope Teamit is like a tube
Bugscope Teamyes it runs along its body and looks like a tube. Very different from a mammal
- 1:50 pm
- Bugscope TeamSome bugs are so small that they don't need a pump (a heart) to move their blood around.
- Bugscope TeamZoomed in on the moth head. These "fish scales" are the dusty covering that helps them escape from a sticky spider web.
- Bugscope Teamthese are moth wing, or body, scales
- 1:55 pm
- Bugscope TeamPollen grains on our cricket.
- Bugscope TeamWing scales work kind of like feathers, on a wing. But they also come off very easily. That helps flying and running insects escape from spider webs: the scales stick to the web and come off, letting the insect escape without its scales
- Bugscope TeamThese are pollen grains -- a different kind, compared to the spiny ones
- Bugscope TeamCricket's face now.
- Bugscope TeamLook at your car's front bumper after a nighttime drive.
- Teacherwhat color is insect blood?
Bugscope TeamIt's clear, usually. Called hemolymph. But we sometimes think it looks yellow, assuming someone squashes an insect and the contents of its abdomen mix with the hemolymph.
- Bugscope TeamScot is right. I am wrong!
- Teacherwe have two minutes any thing else you wanna show us?
- 2:00 pm
- Bugscope TeamClaw of the cricket.
- Bugscope Teamthe hemolymph doesn't circulate like blood -- insects do not have an internal circulatory system like that. But they can use their muscles to push to hemolymph into body parts. If we look at the cricket's claws again we see that in between the claws are little balloon-like elements. Some insects/arthropods can cause those little elements, which are pad like, to swell into crevices. That helps them hold onto surfaces.
- Bugscope TeamVery tip of the cricket's claw.
- Bugscope Teamthe other perhaps more common means of helping insects stick to surfaces are the tiny setae attached to the pulvillus, which is a sticky pad that is often found near the claws.
- Bugscope TeamThank you, Mrs. Beyer, and Thank you to your class!
- Bugscope Teamthank you for joining us today!
- Teacherthank you so much for answering all of our questions!
- 2:07 pm
- Bugscope TeamHousefly.
- Bugscope TeamFly claw. The tiny setae stick to what it walks on. The bigger claws then push it off again. That's how it walks.
- Bugscope TeamThe electron beam actually makes them wave.
