Connected on 2007-09-28 10:00:00 from Bozeman, MT, US
- 9:44am
- Bugscope Team Hi LeAnne!
- Bugscope Team hi leanne!
- Bugscope Team welcome to bugscope
- Bugscope Team hello!
- Teacher Hi~ I'm Nadeen - technical help - Leanne and students aren't quite here yet
- Bugscope Team no problemo.
- Bugscope Team Great, let us know if you have any questions about setting up
- Bugscope Team Hi Nadeen!
- Bugscope Team Please go ahead and try using the controls to the right of the image to make sure everything is working
- Bugscope Team Nadeen we did not get samples, apparently, so we made our own sample for today.
- Bugscope Team yes, leanne did email a week ago saying she probably wouldn't be able to send us samples.
- Bugscope Team Oh Okay.
- 9:49am
- Bugscope Team Yeah it slipped over -- the worm is still moving around a bit.
- Bugscope Team hi buggy!
- Bugscope Team welcome to bugscope!
- Bugscope Team Hi Buggy.
- Teacher Good morning, Bob here, just getting it all setup in the room.. so far so good
- Bugscope Team Please let us know when you have questions about anything.
- Teacher will do
- Bugscope Team Hi Bob.
- Teacher I will log out and let the students log in with their own nickname. . catch in a bit
- 9:54am
- Bugscope Team If you want control of the microscope we can give it to you. Presently LeAnne (Nadeen) has the ability to drive.
- Bugscope Team coolness
- Bugscope Team I would hope not, it might lay eggs in you
- Bugscope Team now there's just one
- 10:01am
- Bugscope Team how is everything going leanne and bob? any questions?
- Bugscope Team This is interesting here because you can see air pockets in the plaque. Sort of like what you might expect with a biofilm
- Bugscope Team MT
- Bugscope Team This is the mouth of a beetle.
- Bugscope Team lots of bacteria and brochosomes
- Teacher Hi~ It's Nadeen - they are't here yet - but they should be coming very soon
- Bugscope Team Good deal.
- Bugscope Team ok
- Bugscope Team ok great
- Bugscope Team percolation in the beetle mouth
- 10:06am
- Teacher LeAnne is here and students will arrive momentarily. Can I try driving really quick?
- Bugscope Team go right ahead!
- Bugscope Team You bet!
- Bugscope Team it's all yours!
- Bugscope Team cool, a mag, and a click to center, good work so far
- Bugscope Team Awesome driving.
- Bugscope Team yeah, you aren't messing around. this is cool.
- Teacher Wow - so cool! What I am looking at? Beetle?
- Bugscope Team Sensilla on the side of the maxillary palp.
- Bugscope Team This is a beetle, on its back.
- Bugscope Team You can see the eyes, streamlined, and the antennae, and the mouth
- Bugscope Team The background is doublestick carbon tape.
- Bugscope Team bugscope, the rpg
- Teacher Ok - kids are just arriving...so questions are about to begin.
- Bugscope Team oops
- Bugscope Team great!
- Bugscope Team hi students, welcome to bugscope!
- Bugscope Team secondary ion mass spectroscopy
- Student Hi Alex!
- Bugscope Team a non sequitur
- Bugscope Team let us know when you have questions about what you are seeing
- Teacher what kind of beetle?
- 10:11am
- Bugscope Team well it's a small beetle -- I don
- Bugscope Team t think we know what it is
- Bugscope Team as far as I know, it's just a small beetle
- Student How small is it?
Bugscope Team the scale bar in the lower-left corner of the image shows you approximate size (like the legend of a map). "um" is microns, or millionths of a meter. when you're zoomed out you can roughly judge how wide the insect would be across
- Bugscope Team Cate did this come from ethanol?
- Bugscope Team I think it's 7 or 8 mm long, maybe a little longer
- Bugscope Team yes
- Bugscope Team here you can see the jaws, and the maxillary palp
- Bugscope Team mandibular and maxillary palps
- Bugscope Team although that does not always work with insects -- upper and lower jaws
- Bugscope Team we are using electrons to image, so we cannot see color
- Bugscope Team we can artificially color it, but we don't have the software to do that
Bugscope Team here is one of our web pages showing how we colorize the ESEM images: http://bugscope.itg.uiuc.edu/diversions/gallery.htm
- Bugscope Team the electron beam is about 2 nm in diameter now
- Teacher what are the hair like structures?
Bugscope Team those are called setae
- Bugscope Team and the wavelengths of color are 400 to 700 nm
- Bugscope Team The hairlike structures are setae.
- Bugscope Team some of the seta are mechanosensory, and some are chemosensory
- Bugscope Team setae help the insect sense the environment around them
- Teacher how long have each scientist been working with bugcope/insects?
Bugscope Team Scott and I have been running Bugscope sessions since early 1998. Cate and Alex joined us a few years ago.
- Teacher how is the beetle's site?
- Bugscope Team bugs have a hard shell so they have these "hair-like" setae to help them 'feel'
- 10:16am
- Teacher sight?
- Bugscope Team because insects do not have skin -- they have an exoskeleton -- they need to have many setae sticking through the chitin so they can sense their environment
- Bugscope Team this beetle can likely see in color
- Bugscope Team it may not have the ability to see in the UV
- Bugscope Team I have only been with bugscope a couple years
- Bugscope Team we have been running bugscope for over 8 years now
- Teacher what are we looking at?
- Bugscope Team Chas started when he was a sophomore in high school. We drafted him as cheap labor.
- Bugscope Team this is part of the underside of the beetle
- Bugscope Team hard to tell just where we are
- Student What are the small white dots everywhere?
- Bugscope Team some of the spines are used by the beetle to feel whether it is bent too far or not
- Bugscope Team student2, can you point out the dots when you see them again? I missed it
- Student how do you examine the inside of the beetle
Bugscope Team examining the inside of the beetle isn't easily done with the electron microscope because it doesn't see through things, but another thing we do is X-Ray computed tomography (CT), the same thing they do at a hospital to see inside you. Also they frequently dissect them
- Bugscope Team beetles do not have teeth but they may have hardened tips to their jaws
- Bugscope Team we would have to bust it open and let it dry, see what is inside
- 10:22am
- Bugscope Team we have seen inside of mealworms before, and we could see the muscle attachments
- Teacher how big is the microscope (electron)
Bugscope Team it is the size of a table. here is a picture of our ESEM: http://www.itg.uiuc.edu/ms/equipment/microscopes/esem/
- Bugscope Team the microscope is about the size of a large desk. the column is about 6 feet high
- Bugscope Team a transmission electron microscope is usually larger
- Bugscope Team taller
- Student Inside the mouth, is it skin?
Bugscope Team it's probably a softer tissue than the exoskeleton, yes
- Bugscope Team this is a louse, provided by our secretary, who somehow got it from one of her kids
- Bugscope Team it's not really skin, but a skinlike membrane
- Bugscope Team the mouth is probably everted in real life
- Bugscope Team this is shrunken
- Bugscope Team from drying
- Teacher are we looking at the sucking mouthparts? what about the spikes?
- Bugscope Team even though Cate critical point dried it
- Bugscope Team we think the spikes help it attach to the human host skin
- Bugscope Team so it can get down to business
- Bugscope Team one of the reasons we use insects is that their hard chitinous exoskeleton retains its shape even if they're not elaborately dried. soft parts of the body like mouthparts, eyes, etc can dry out and shrivel though
- Student What is the smallest bug you have looked at, and how large was it?
Bugscope Team one of the smallest I can think of is a special kind of mite that lives on the body of an earwig
Bugscope Team Ah, the smallest I can think of was a Tardigrade, and it was about the size of a piece of dust. Even under a light microscope it just looked like a spec
- Student Are the spikes what make us itch?
- Student what is the largest bug you've ever looked at
- Bugscope Team when we critical point dry samples we are trying to preserve the original shape of the membranous parts, but it does not always work so well
- Student do you scientists ever get bored?
Bugscope Team NEVER!!!
Bugscope Team There is *always* something new to do. We're especially lucky where we work in that we're a support facility for other researchers. Thus there's a steady stream of new students and faculty with new projects coming in whose projects we get involved with
- 10:27am
- Bugscope Team the biggest insects have been cicadas and grasshoppers
- Bugscope Team they are very large for the microscope, though, and we could not get many other critters on with them
- Bugscope Team there is a limit to how big a bug can be inside the microscope. there are bugs that are probably too big to fit in it.
- Bugscope Team so usually we try to have small bugs
- Teacher what is your favorite insects to look at under this microscope?
Bugscope Team i like mites, they are the bugs that bug bugs!
- Bugscope Team I like earwigs
- Bugscope Team especially because as Chas mentioned they often have mites
- Bugscope Team I like ants
- Student is this bug missing any legs
- Bugscope Team the smoother area is silver paint
- Student Does a louse have wings?
Bugscope Team no they are wingless
- Bugscope Team I am not sure if it is supposed to have six or eight legs
- Bugscope Team leanne, you are doing an excellent job of controlling the scope.
- Bugscope Team I think six, and it looks like they are all there
- Bugscope Team this is sort of like a cercopod on an earwig
- Bugscope Team a pincer tail
- Teacher is this a pincer for holding on?
- Bugscope Team we think it is just that
- Bugscope Team to help it cling to hair
- Bugscope Team on someone's head
- Student what are the insects that bite and what are the ones that don't bite
Bugscope Team there are so many millions of insects that it's hard to give a general answer. generally it's divided along the lines of carnivore and herbivore much like for other animals
- Teacher are these setae as well?
- Student Why can insects survive very cold weather?
Bugscope Team first and foremost their a lot simpler than we are. Also they're cold-blooded so cold temperatures just make them slow down (as opposed to becoming hypothermic and dying). Also some insects that survive winters actually produce a sort of anti-freeze in their bodies
- Bugscope Team the hairlike things are setae
- Student how many insects do you study each day
Bugscope Team we normally put bugs in the ESEM for bugscope sessions, other scientists put many other things in to the scope, like metals or the like...
- 10:32am
- Bugscope Team some insects bite and some don't -- I am not sure there is a division
- Bugscope Team we don't work with insects normally, just for bugscope
- Bugscope Team bugs are veyr hairy, sometimes you can find them inbetween the facets of a compound eye
- Bugscope Team although Cate has been taking 3D images of bugs for a toy company
- Bugscope Team bed bugs bite heh
- Teacher we are surprised at how hairy they are - cool!
Bugscope Team yes, those hairs (setae) help the bug to sense it's environment. so maybe the more hairs, the better the bug can sense where it is and what is around it.
- Student Have you looked at a spider, and how small was it?
- Student what is your education background
Bugscope Team I have a bachelors degree (undergraduate) in Physics and Computer Science. I'm currently working on a Ph.D in Bioengineering
- Student specifically college degrees?
- Bugscope Team spiders can be fun to look at, but they dry out and shrink up easily, so they don't always look pretty
- Bugscope Team I have a degree in English and Biology but still cannot type very well
- Student what country have the most insects
- Teacher thorax?
- Bugscope Team I imagine there are more insects toward the equator
- Bugscope Team yup this is the thorax
- Teacher what are all the flakes? skin flakes from a human?
- Bugscope Team spiders sometimes pop in the vacuum of the 'scope
- Bugscope Team they could be from Kendra's kids
- Teacher nice view of jointed appendages
- Student How old do you have to be to work at Bugscope?
Bugscope Team chas was 14 when he first started working on bugscope, right chas?
- Student what's a louse's scientific name
Bugscope Team a louse is a Phthiraptera. if you look up louse on www.wikipedia.com, it will tell you the complete scientific classification of the louse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louse
- Bugscope Team you can see the spikes at the ends of some of the limbs.
- Bugscope Team Chas was 14 or 15 when he started -- child labor
- Bugscope Team Just 15 I believe. I had to get a permit to work since I was under 16
- 10:37am
- Bugscope Team Pediculus humanus
- Teacher look at all this hair - setae
Bugscope Team it's amazing how insects can look slick and shiny to the eye but extremely hairy under the electron microscope. Part of it is that they're so small, part of it is that the hairs can be nearly transparent to light, but opaque to the electron microscope
- Bugscope Team I got to help out with Bugscope because my school was only about a 3 minute walk from the Beckman Institute where this microscope is
- Bugscope Team this is cool -- these are slashing mouthparts
- Bugscope Team this is why horseflies hurt when they bite
- Bugscope Team you are doing a great job of driving
- Teacher is this a deer fly?
- Bugscope Team Pediculus humanus
- Bugscope Team this is smaller than a deerfly and we are not sure what it is
- Student Why are the fly's eyes so big?
Bugscope Team one of the reasons they have compound eyes is the ability to make them in those wrap-around shapes that give it a nearly 360 degree field of view, very important when you fly so fast or need to avoid predators (ever try and hit a fly with you hand?)
- Bugscope Team when the eyes are big it is usually a flying insect
- Student is that a nose we're looking at?
- Student do they use feelers?
Bugscope Team well, i think the hairs (setae) are used in part to "feel" it's own environment.
- Bugscope Team yes it very likely has a good sense of smell
- Student how do you prepare the bug to study under a microscope
- Bugscope Team probably not a nose, but a lot of chemosensory setae
- Student where do you collect the bugs?
Bugscope Team many people bring us bugs from their homes. we also check out gardens occasionally and have people in the entomology department at the University that bring us bugs
- Teacher all of these students are working on their own insect collections
- Bugscope Team often we just let them dry out, then we mount them on a stub using doublestick carbon tape, and silver paint, and then we sputter coat them with gold-palladium
- Bugscope Team heh I find a lot of insects in my house
- Bugscope Team so even if we could see color, the insects/arthropods are silver
- 10:42am
- Student There is a camera in our room - are you watching us?
Bugscope Team no, but please give us the website!
- Bugscope Team oh can we?
- Bugscope Team that would be change for us
- Teacher why silver paint?
Bugscope Team it's silver because that's conductive. we use paint as an adhesive to hold them to the stub
- Student how many bugs do you have at the moment
Bugscope Team we used to have a few hundred in vials of ethanol that someone dropped off with us. I think we've used a whole lot of them though...
- Bugscope Team the silver paint is very conductive and lets us ensure the sample is stuck down well as well as grounded
- Teacher we'll send you bugs from our collections when we finish
Bugscope Team oh that would be cool
- Bugscope Team we have thousands of bugs but not that many that are good for imaging like this
- Bugscope Team awesome
- Student what is the thing above the mouth?
- Teacher are we looking at a tongue-like structure?
Bugscope Team yeah, we're seeing the actual mouthpart as well as some of the protective covering structures that usually surround it
- Bugscope Team that sounds great
- Student that curves up?
- Bugscope Team yes this is the slashing mouthpart
- Student what is the rarest bug in the world?
Bugscope Team that is a difficult question for me to answer, i looked at wikipedia, but couldn't find an answer for you. there are so many species of bugs in the world, that it would be hard to know for sure which was the most rare.
- Bugscope Team if we look up close we may see that the thing pointing toward us is serrated like a steak knife
- Bugscope Team once I was working with an entomologist who had one of six known flies of that type from Israel
- Teacher is the "tongue" sticky?
Bugscope Team In the case of the horse fly I believe they usually have a sharp cutting instrument then a soft fleshy part that comes down and vacuums up the blood. I dunno if they need anything sticky
- Bugscope Team but it is hard to say
- Teacher no wonder it hurts when they bite!
- Bugscope Team this one is not sticky, probably
- Bugscope Team it cuts like a machete
- 10:47am
- Teacher wow - all the students are oohing and ahhing!
- Bugscope Team a forest of setae
- Bugscope Team I love hairs like these.... so complex. Looks like a forest of sea-weed or something
- Bugscope Team now it looks like a bee with a mohawk
- Bugscope Team this likely has ocelli on top of its head
- Bugscope Team Spiders often have the most complex looking hairs. I believe they need the complicated shapes in order to handle their sticky web without getting stuck to it
- Teacher we aren't sure what we are lookng at? is this the eye?
Bugscope Team yeah, I see an eye surrounded by a lot of hair and some antennae
- Bugscope Team spiders also sense vibration very well, and their hairs are adapted to be able to pick up vibration
- Bugscope Team take the mag down, maybe, it's hard to tell where we are
- Student Do the setae have nerves?
Bugscope Team the "mechanosensory" setae typically extend through a hole in the exoskeleton into the body where they are anchored to some nerves. so the seta itself doesn't feel, but if it's deflected the movement is felt inside the body
- Bugscope Team You can see get a sense for how many facets, or individual eyes their are in this one compound eye
- Bugscope Team More than you can count for sure
- Student do the setae have nerves?
- Bugscope Team Leanne/Nadeen you are doing a fantastic job driving.
- Teacher how many facets are there? generally?
Bugscope Team the number of facets is typically directly proportional to how important their eyes are to survival. Thus ants which live underground have about a hundred or so while flying insects can have thousands
- Bugscope Team the setae are often connected to nerves
- Teacher thanks. it is fun...i'm getting the hang of it.
- Student why is the eye shaped like an octagon
- Bugscope Team sometimes the setae are connected to several sensory nerves, for example some mosquito chemosensory setae can detect three different human chemicals
- Student Have you ever been hurt by collecting bugs?
- 10:52am
- Bugscope Team the individual ommatidia assume that shape because it is best for closepacking
- Bugscope Team you can see the hamuli here
- Bugscope Team to the NE
- Teacher one of its wings - hamuli, what is that?
Bugscope Team up close they sort of look like velcro: loops and hooks that fasten to hold the wings together
- Bugscope Team the little wing hooks
- Bugscope Team you can see the hoops on the upper edge of the wing
- Teacher ooh - we can see them now
- Bugscope Team insects that have four wings sometimes have the ability to clip the fore and hindwings together when they fly
- Bugscope Team they're very pretty
- Bugscope Team that lets them fly more efficiently
- Bugscope Team wasps have that feature
- Bugscope Team so those are clips that connect two wings
- Teacher very cool - we hadn't heard of that before...
- Bugscope Team the other thing we saw on this stub was a haltere
- Teacher would it be possible to see these with the naked eye?
- Bugscope Team those are found on Diptera, which the name tells you have only two wings
- Bugscope Team I don't think so, although they might give an interference pattern you could recognize
- Bugscope Team green
- Student How big are their brains?
- Bugscope Team the brains are different sizes, but small -- often much of a brain is optic
- Student thank you!
- Student Thank you thank you :)
- Teacher first group of kids are leaving and say thank you thank you thank you.
- Bugscope Team in a fruit fly a majority of the brain has to do with sight
- Teacher next group of students is just arriving and will be asking questions as well
- Bugscope Team cool! Thank You!
- Bugscope Team thank you students, you had GREAT questions!
- 10:57am
- Teacher we have only 3 computers to get out chat out to you all. you are all GREAT! We are all learning a lot!
- Bugscope Team If you drive to preset 9 you can see the haltere on a dipteran
- Teacher Kids said "thanks for your time"
- Bugscope Team brb
- Bugscope Team it is a pleasure to work with you!
- Teacher haltere? i'm not familiar witht his term? bacteria?
Bugscope Team leanne, i took this directly from wikipedia: haltere: also known as balancers or poisers, are small knobbed structures found as a pair in some two-winged insects
Bugscope Team the haltere looks like a small punching bag. you see it bouncing back and forth against the side of a fly's body in flight. in motion it acts as a gyroscope allowing the insect to detect extremely subtle changes in flight path allowing it to fly straight even in the wind, etc
- Bugscope Team Glad to have you on students!
- Bugscope Team it looks like a punching bag
- Bugscope Team the halteres function like gyroscopes
- Teacher so these roundish structures are there for balance?
Bugscope Team we're zoomed in really high right now on a small part of the haltere. the small structures are actually waxy excretions from an insect called a leaf-hopper that got on this other sample
- Bugscope Team yes
- Bugscope Team if you take the mag down you can see it
- Bugscope Team the round things came from another insect
- Bugscope Team halteres help balance against the motion of the two wings
- Teacher wow - that is so neat - I've never heard of that before
- Bugscope Team the round things are brochosomes, from a leafhoper
- Teacher ok - our next group of kids have just arrived...questions will begin momentarily with this next group
- Bugscope Team hi students, welcome to bugscope!
- Bugscope Team try taking the mag way down and you can see the shape of the haltere
- Bugscope Team LeAnne this has been an exemplary session -- you are doing such a good job.
- Bugscope Team the round things that kind of look like cereal (what's the name again?) are about 100nm across it looks like, meaning they're smaller than the wavelength of light!
- Bugscope Team kix
- 11:02am
- Bugscope Team now you can see the haltere clearly
- Bugscope Team and the wing
- Bugscope Team and the folded limbs
- Bugscope Team pretty complicated body structure
- Bugscope Team the setae on the face make up the vestiture
- Student What power or magnification is this microscope?
Bugscope Team our ESEM can magnify up to 600,000 times i believe, but at that mag you can't see much. for bugs, magnifications of 50-25,000 times are much more useful.
- Student How many electron microscopes are there in the world?
Bugscope Team it's hard to say definitively, but they are much rarer than light microscopes. typically there is only one at smaller colleges and maybe a handful at larger universities
- Bugscope Team hey all
- Bugscope Team yay!]
- Bugscope Team Annie, our entomologist, has arrived
- Student What is the function of the hairlike structures on the antennae?
Bugscope Team the hairs (more correctly called setae) allow the insect to sense its environment. They can be mechanosensory or chemosensory
- Bugscope Team we had to wing it without her
- Student ha ha wing it!
- Student now we can really fly!
- Bugscope Team the hairs on the antennae are often highly chemosensory
- Student What is under the exoskeleton and how is it connected to the exoskeleton?
Bugscope Team Under the exoskeleton are muscles and organs.
- Bugscope Team lots of juice called hemolymph
- 11:07am
- Bugscope Team the 'blood'
- Bugscope Team there are muscle and nerves under the skeleton
- Bugscope Team the nerves are attached to the setae
- Teacher tit looks like there are "hooks" underneath the eyes - what are they?
- Bugscope Team and muscles, nerves (d'oh!), guts
- Bugscope Team It is exactly the opposite of vertebrates who have their skin and organs and muscles on the outside of their skeletons
- Bugscope Team wow go in!
- Student Do insects have organs like us?
Bugscope Team Not all the same organs. They have a heart and a digestive system and a nervous system. They have "blood", although it doesn't carry oxygen like ours does.
- Student Can insects grow antennae back if they were to fall or break off?
- Bugscope Team hard to see here, isn't it?
- Teacher yeah - I seem to have lost it
- Bugscope Team But yes, they have organs, small organs, but organs nonetheless
- Teacher these look like eyes - are they sensory organs?
- Bugscope Team we cannot make it so you can tilt because it is a manual function with a big lever on the front of the 'scope
- Bugscope Team this is the clypeus, Annie?
- Bugscope Team the eyes are to the left and right
- Bugscope Team so this houses the muscles that make the mouth work
- Bugscope Team ummm...more like the frons
- Bugscope Team that's why I asked
- Bugscope Team the clypeus is the "upper lip"
- Bugscope Team although it could be an enlarged clypeus
- 11:13am
- Bugscope Team Annie works with emerald ash borers and can tell you what they learn about them
- Bugscope Team is this a horsefly?
- Bugscope Team heh
- Student Does the pattern on the wings help the insect fly?
Bugscope Team Not really. Ususally the pattern on an insects wings is for camoflauge or for warning...depending upon the color
- Bugscope Team not sure what it is annie
- Bugscope Team it is smaller than a normal horsefly or deerfly
- Bugscope Team hmmm. it has those horse fly looking mouthparts
- Bugscope Team in some ways we think the tiny setae on the wing help the insect hold the air
- Bugscope Team they probably trap air, provide surface area with a minimum of weight
- Bugscope Team this is the booty of one of the bugs -- looks like a stinger but is not
- Bugscope Team the tip of the abdomen
- Teacher we have a question about if all insects die after stinging?
- Bugscope Team not all die after
- Bugscope Team you meant the color pattern, right? Not the pattern or setae, right?
- Bugscope Team some can sting repeatedly
- Bugscope Team Too many "rights" there ;)
- Student What is the function of the hairlike structures on the stinger?
- Bugscope Team this is (another) one we have not identified
- Bugscope Team i believe bees die after only once
- Bugscope Team probably mostly sensory
- Student What makes the sting hurt so badly?
Bugscope Team The insect injects a venom when they sting. That is what hurts.
- Bugscope Team like rat or cat whiskers
- Student And why so many hairlike structures?
Bugscope Team Because the hairs are the only way for the insect to sense its environment through its thick exoskeleton
- Bugscope Team so if you are stung multiple times, you could have an allergic reaction to the venon
- 11:18am
- Student What's the most dangerous wasp on the planet?
Bugscope Team Well, I have heard that the tarantual hawk has the most painful sting.
- Student What are the small white specks on the stinger?
- Teacher we'll be studying Melitobia digitata next week - tiny tiny parasitic wasps - how big is this little wasp?
Bugscope Team do you know what family of wasps Melitobia is in? I can give you a size estimate based on that.
- Bugscope Team the white specks are brochosomes
- Student How many joints does the leg have?
Bugscope Team there are at least five joints in each insect leg....there can be more depending on the number of tarsomeres
- Student Where do tarantual hawk wasps live?
Bugscope Team You can find them in the southwest US and into the tropics. They are whereever you find tarantulas.
- Teacher I don't know...ugh.
- Teacher it looks like 3 claws? what is the proper name for this?
- Bugscope Team the leg has multiple joints that vary in number
- Bugscope Team the ones toward the claw are called tarsi
- Teacher are they parasitic using tarantulas as host?
Bugscope Team They sting and paralyze tarantulas and lay their eggs on them
- Bugscope Team two claws and the pulvillus
- Bugscope Team the third claw we see is from another limb
- Student How long have insects lived on earth?
Bugscope Team insects are the most diverse group of animals on earth, with more than a million species described. they have been around on earth hundreds of millions of years, which is the date of the oldest insect fossil.
- Teacher what is a tarsomere?
Bugscope Team a tarsomere is an individual segement of the tarsi--the feet!
- Teacher now we can see some of these joints
- 11:23am
- Student Do all insects have these sensory "hairs"?
- Bugscope Team a tarsomere is an individual segment of the tarsus
- Student Can every bee sting?
Bugscope Team Not every bee can sting. There are some tropical bees that have no stingers. They are called...stingless bees!
- Teacher what is a tarsus?
Bugscope Team A tarsus is one tarsi---and a tarsi is an insects foot.
- Student How do wasps make their nests?
- Bugscope Team tarsus is sort of like the forearm
- Student What holds the main body parts together?
- Teacher it looks like we are looking at a missing leg?
- Bugscope Team You can see more hamuli here
- Bugscope Team ah yes, on the bottom right? sometimes things fall off...
- Teacher I think I see some more hook-like structures here on the wing?
- Bugscope Team yep i see the hooks too
- Student What are these hooks used for?
Bugscope Team These hooks--called hamuli--hold the fore and hind wing of the bee together when they fly
- Student What are these dots on the wings?
Bugscope Team The dots are little setae---althought they are so small, I am not sure of their function
- Student Do all bugs have compound eyes?
Bugscope Team Hmm.....there are some insects that are eyeless (that live in caves), and there are some with reduced eyes.
- 11:28am
- Student Does the stinger retract or is it constantly "out"?
- Student Do bees sting other bees?
Bugscope Team Yes
- Teacher its mouth looks beak like?
- Bugscope Team sthe stinger is also known as an ovipositor, and I think it can be retracted
- Teacher are the mouthparts up inside here?
Bugscope Team yes those are parts of the mouth, it looks like it is eating another insect, but those are mouth parts
- Bugscope Team ants have a similar busy mouth structure
- Teacher are these setae on the eye? why on the eye?
Bugscope Team setae can be found on the eye, especially on flying ensects
- Student If bees sting other bees, does the target bee die? Does the stinging bee died?
Bugscope Team If it is a honey bee, then I guess both bees could die. I think it would depend on who was the most unlucky bee
- Student Do beetles eat each other?
Bugscope Team yes, they do. There are some predatory beetles (ground and tiger and checkered beetles) and there are some beetles that will eat other beetles if they get the opportunity (they will eat anything they can, including other beetles)
- Bugscope Team if you see setae on a compound eye of a flying einsect, the function of them is to detect wind movement usually
- Teacher i guess this would help them sense when a flyswatter or tail is coming near to swatting them?
- Bugscope Team yes they can also sense that with them
- 11:33am
- Teacher ooooo gross! students say....he needs to brush!
- Student We saw a slow motion movie of a fly in flight - do other insects see in slow motion?
- Bugscope Team heh
- Bugscope Team yes he does, makes me want to brush my teeth
- Student Why do the legs curl up when they die?
- Student Annie, do you know what type of beetle this is?
Bugscope Team This looks like a sap
- Bugscope Team i'm not sure if they see in slow motion, but some see infrared, and I think UV as well
- Student The antennae seem to cover the eyes???
- Bugscope Team sap beetle
- Student Do beetles have teeth?
Bugscope Team they have teeth on their mandibles
- Bugscope Team I think
- Bugscope Team and probably on their maxialle too
- Bugscope Team I actually can't tell when this beetle is. It almost looks like a water beetle---could that be possible?
- Bugscope Team I just know it is a small beetle
- 11:38am
- Teacher are these compound eyes - the hexagonal designed on the sides?
- Student What are the dots or pores on the "forehead"?
Bugscope Team The indentations look just like cuticular structuring
- Bugscope Team yes kind of like a honeycombe shape
- Student Why do the legs curl up when the bug dies?
Bugscope Team You know that is a good question...not all insects curl up when they die, but many do. It probably is because the insect is no longer maintaining the appropriate fluid pressure in its legs and so they curl up. I know that is why spiders curl up when they die.
Bugscope Team when bugs die they dry out, so some of the curling might be due to drying out.
- Student Have there been experiments some of the sensory hairs on live insects to see how it effects them?
Bugscope Team Yes, there is an entire sub-branch of entomology that deals with electrophysiology. They can actually attach single electrode sensors to single setae and record the effects of temperature, chemicals, or any stimulus on the hair.
- Bugscope Team I'm sure there have been experiments, annie might know in more detail
- Student how did lice get started - a long time ago?
Bugscope Team I am not sure when in the history of the earth lice first appeared. I do know that many lice co-evolved with their hosts...I can elaborate more on that if you are interested.
- Teacher are the tiny dots on the left and right of the big mouth the eyes?
Bugscope Team if you move closer, I think those are setae coming out of pores
- 11:43am
- Bugscope Team wow a louse, awesome!
- Bugscope Team these guys have very spiky spines, maybe it helps them cling to the hair
- Bugscope Team and the scalp
- Teacher could we call this "armpit" a "lousepit"? :-)
- Student What are the little bumps here?
Bugscope Team This is just some sort of cuticular sculpturing, I am not sure if it is of any significance.
- Bugscope Team haha
- Teacher all the bumps on these joints...what are they?
- Student how big were the prehistoric insects?
Bugscope Team most were a ton bigger than they are now, I think dragonflies were something like 3x the size they are now
- Student How can you tell male/female?
Bugscope Team I don't know how to tell male/female lice apart. I am sure it is something to do with the shape of the genital plate...but I am not a louse expert (thankfully!)
- Bugscope Team There are two groups of lice, sucking lice and chewing lice. This is a sucking louse.
- Teacher are there human chewing lice?
Bugscope Team There are no human chewing lice...chewing lice are mostly found on non-human animals.
- 11:49am
- Teacher this is my favorite shot - the forest of bee hair! :-)
Bugscope Team mine too!
- Bugscope Team cate made this preset.
- Teacher do they groom themselves?
Bugscope Team Insects constantly groom themselves. They have to keep those hairs clean so they can sense their environment.
- Teacher thanks cate - a good one
- Teacher stinger?
- Bugscope Team that looks sharp and pointy in there
- Teacher it looks retracted into the abdomen?
Bugscope Team I really cant tell
- Bugscope Team what do you think annie
- Bugscope Team and it has setae on it as well.
- Bugscope Team Forked hairs forked hairs...that is an important taxonomic character to separate the order hymenoptera into families
- Student Is there a reason they have compound eyes?
- Student THANK YOU!! :-)
- Teacher all the kids are off to their next class - they say thank you for being here with us! Thank you!!!!
- Student Many Thanks!
- Bugscope Team Bees and sphecid wasps have forked haors
- Bugscope Team thank you! you all were amazing, one of the best bugscope sessions ever.
- Bugscope Team thanks guys, it was a great session
- Bugscope Team whew
- 11:54am
- Bugscope Team :)
- Bugscope Team Yes, LeAnne your classes asked some really great questions and your driving was excellent
- Bugscope Team Lots of GOOD questions!
- Teacher This was awesome...you guys are great! What a great time this was!!! We are excited to go through the transcript later and discuss all we've learned.
- Bugscope Team Sounds great
- Bugscope Team these images are also saved
- Bugscope Team And if you need any more information, clarification, etc. I would be happy to help.
- Bugscope Team you guys have been great, and nice driving all the way leanne
- Teacher thanks. I'm logging out now. thanks again for making such possible.
- Bugscope Team Bye LeAnne!
- Bugscope Team bye LeAnne thank you for all the questions!!
- Bugscope Team go ahead and shut down i mean
- 11:59am
- Bugscope Team closing down the session now...
- Bugscope Team OK bye bye everyone. Fun session today!
