Connected on 2020-09-25 13:00:00
from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, United States
- 12:13 pm
- Bugscope TeamHello over there! We're setting up; should be ready by 1 our time, 2 your time.
- 12:18 pm
- Bugscope Teamoops you are in the same time zone, sorry--
- 12:23 pm
- 12:28 pm
- 12:34 pm
- 12:40 pm
- Bugscope TeamHello!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- 12:46 pm
- Bugscope TeamThis is a trapjaw ant.
- Bugscope Teamthis is its antenna comb
- 12:51 pm
- 12:57 pm
- TeacherReady when you are
Bugscope TeamI think you have control, if you want to try it out
- Bugscope TeamYes -- you should be able to drive. If you click on the lefthand arrow you can see your choices of what to see.
- TeacherAre these little lines like hairs?
Bugscope TeamSome are hairs, or setae as they are called on insects, and some are actual grooves on the surface
- Bugscope TeamSo here is a little higher magnification on the head
- Bugscope Teamsometimes the grooves can make it seem shiny
- Bugscope Teamthis is cool
- Bugscope Teamthe little straight things are the setae. The round things are hairs
- TeacherI'm not sure I'm able to pick the next image...
Bugscope Teamcan you try now? Sorry
- 1:03 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe background is carbon tape, which has some bubbles in it. There are also some areas of dried silver paint to help ground the samples
- TeacherIs that white spot pollen?
Bugscope Teamlooks like it is just some dirt or other stray material.
- Bugscope Teamif we go back to the trapjaw ant we can see tiny mold spores, which look like pollen
- Bugscope Teamit's likely there's some pollen on this sample
- Bugscope TeamSweet!
- TeacherOK we can go back to that in a minutes
- Bugscope TeamThis is cool. An adult tick
- Bugscope Teamit has eight arms and legs
- Bugscope Teamyou can bring the magnification up if you want
- Bugscope Teamthe head has palps on either side
- Bugscope Teamin the center is the hypostome, which sticks into your skin
- 1:08 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe palps move apart when the hypostome goes into your skin
- TeacherWhat is the white by the mouth?
Bugscope Teamlet's look and see
- TeacherCool
- Bugscope Teamthings that are kind of loose, just barely sticking on the surface of a sample, will charge up with electrons and appear white
- TeacherAre the eyes sunken?
Bugscope Teamthose aren't the eyes, but are actual mouthparts
- Bugscope Teamwe can't actually see the eyes right now
- Bugscope Teamit would have simple eyes nearer its shoulder area
- TeacherDoes it have eyes?
- Bugscope Teamthe stuff all over it looks like a layer of possible biofilm, which is what bacteria make
- 1:14 pm
- Bugscope Teambutterflies and moths can easily let some scales loose to get away from dangerous situations, like a spider web
- TeacherDo you know what kind of butterfly this is?
Bugscope TeamI am not sure. It was red with some other coloring, but it wasn't a monarch
- Bugscope Teamthe spacing in the ribs of the scale help give the scales color
- Bugscope Teamthey refract the light different ways to show color
- TeacherAre these really holes?
Bugscope Teamthere are holes, and they help make the scales lightweight
Bugscope Teamsometimes in those hole areas there will be pigment granules, but I don't see any on these
- TeacherWhat is hamuli?
Bugscope Teamthey are hooks on wings that will hook the two sets of wings together so they act like one
- 1:19 pm
- Bugscope Teambees and wasps have four wings and connect two on each side to form two single wings when they fly
- Bugscope Teamthe hamuli are clips
- Bugscope Teamhaving four wings allows the wings to be smaller, and they can be folded up when bees or wasps want to get into small spaces
- TeacherWhat are the circle like spots?
- Bugscope Teamthe round things are the placoid (plate-like) sensilla. we are not sure what they sense -- touch, or hot/cold, or scents
- Bugscope TeamHi Teppie!
- Bugscope Teaminsects have a wide variety of sensing structures
- Teacherso what are the white things sticking out?
Bugscope Teamthose are setae (bug hairs)
Bugscope Teamthey help with sense of touch or possibly temperature variations, or chemicals
- GuestHi all!
Bugscope Teamhey
- 1:24 pm
- Bugscope Teamthey have exoskeletons, which are kind of like wearing armor
- Bugscope Teamwe have skin, which is obviously sensory; insects and some other arthropods have a shell -- the exoskeleton
Bugscope Teamso insects need to have the ability to sense their surroundings, and they use the setae, placoid sensilla, and other sensory organs
- Bugscope Teamits mouthparts make it look like an insect is trying to climb out of its mouth
- Bugscope Teamthe tiny 'hairs' we see on the underside of the claws (above, now) are called 'tenent setae'
- TeacherWe have not heard of weevils before....Do you know where they live and what they do?
- 1:29 pm
- Bugscope Teamthey usually have very long snouts with antennae on the sides of the snouts
- Bugscope Teamthey are grain pests
- Bugscope Teamand I guess there are weevils that eat cotton parts of cotton plants -- the boll weevils
- Bugscope Teamwe're looking at the mandibles (jaws) now
- 1:34 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe very bright things we see are charging up with electrons because we were not able to coat them efficiently when we prep the samples
- Bugscope Teamnow you can see the claws, on the right, with the tenent setae, part of the pad on each 'hand' that is called the pulvillus
- Bugscope Teamflies, for example, have tenent setae that help them cling to the ceiling
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the compound eye on this side, on the head next to the palp
- Bugscope Teammost insects have two palps on each side that help them taste something they might want to eat
- Bugscope Teammoth compound eye
- Bugscope Teamthe individual facets of the eye are called ommatidia
- 1:39 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe tiny setae at the interfaces are sensory -- they let the moth know which way the wind is coming from
- Bugscope Teamthe ommatidia have a fine substructure we may be able to see if we go up close
- Bugscope Teamotherwise, we see some debris on the surface of the compound eye
- Bugscope Teamthere are thousands of ommatidia on each compound eye
- Bugscope Teamyou are doing a great job driving around the microscope and changing things
- Bugscope Teamlook at the claws! so cool!
- 1:44 pm
- Bugscope TeamNaCl
- Bugscope Teamtable salt looks like this most of the time.
- Teacheris this the kind you have in the kitchen?
Bugscope Teamit looks like this. like plain cubes for the most part
- Bugscope Teamthere is another kind of table salt we used to get from Wendy's that has a sort of Aztec look to it
- Bugscope Teamin the background we see little craters in the doublestick tape that holds the samples onto the stub
- 1:49 pm
- TeacherDo you have any other interesting info or detail to show us before we are done?
Bugscope Teamwe're checking to see what we might have missed
- Bugscope Teamthis is the stage we're using for your sample
- Bugscope Teamthe big thing on the left is the moth
- Bugscope Teamthe sample holder is 1.75 inches in diameter
- Bugscope Teamthese are very sad pollen grains with what look like bacteria on them
- Bugscope Teamthis is part of a flower -- the anther
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the open cells
- 1:55 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is a really cool antenna -- like we have not seen in the past
- TeacherThank you for showing us these cool images and telling us about them! We learned a lot!
- Bugscope TeamThank you for joining us today!
- Bugscope Teamthanks for joining us
- Bugscope Teamscott is just driving around to look at the tick mouthpart
- TeacherNeat!
- 2:01 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is the part of the hypostome that sticks into your skin. on the other side the surface has smaller 'teeth' that help abrade your skin
- Bugscope Teamthe tick's body is built to expand many times, so if we look up close we can see that its surface has many folds in it
- 2:06 pm
- Bugscope Teamjust one of the claws
- Bugscope Teamthere is debris on the claw, not sure what it is
- Bugscope Teamwhat we see now are the infoldings of the cuticle
- Bugscope Teamthere are some bacteria on the surface but it is hard to see today
- 2:11 pm
- Bugscope Teamticks can heal themselves if they get really big from a blood meal and someone breaks them open
- Bugscope TeamI will shut down now and let someone else use the microscope. Thank you for connecting with us today!
- Bugscope Teamsj = Scott. Thank you!
