Connected on 2007-10-04 11:30:00 from Yarmouth, ME, US
- 11:27am
- Bugscope Team hi YES, welcome to bugscope!
- Bugscope Team hi YES
- Bugscope Team we are ready for you, presets are on your bottom right. go ahead and start practicing if you want to.
- Bugscope Team Let us know if you have any questions or need any help.
- Teacher Hi, we're on, the clas will be with you in 2 minutes
- Bugscope Team You should see chat, of course, and you should see the head of an ant
- Teacher This is Cathy, yes I see both
- Bugscope Team cool!
- Bugscope Team You should also see that you have controls to the upper right and presets to the lower right
- Bugscope Team and you are welcome to try them out
- Teacher I tried focus and adjust. We're telling the class what they are seeing. Is this one of our samples?
- Bugscope Team The ant you sent did not fare so well, so we used one of ours
- Bugscope Team try changing the mag.
- Bugscope Team but we still have the rolypoly and the thing clinging to the grass on here
- Bugscope Team the ant has something in its jaws
- 11:32am
- Bugscope Team excellent moving to the jaw cathy, you are doing great!
- Bugscope Team you can see how the jaws are hinged like a gate
- Teacher Clare asks, Do you know what is in the jaws?
- Bugscope Team I looked earlier and could not tell what it might be
- Bugscope Team but you are welcome to check it out
- Bugscope Team I was hoping to find bacteria
- Bugscope Team when you get close is when focus is helpful
- Bugscope Team well he was living in a jar with a lot of dirt and mulch so it is likely a piece of dirt
- Teacher We learned that roly polys eat stones and concrete as part of their diet. Is it part of an ant's diet too?
Bugscope Team Often ants don't directly eat what they collect. Instead they bring the food back to their nest and store it underground in dark, moist "farms" where it grows fungi which they later harvest and eat
- Bugscope Team Maybe they have a gizzard like a bird.
- Bugscope Team Annie should know.
- Teacher Are we now looking at a part of the leg of the ant or another creature?
- Bugscope Team But I imagine they don't eat too much dirt and rocks and concrete
- Bugscope Team Ants are generally omnivores, but I don't believe they are known to eat non-biological materials
- Bugscope Team ants have "busy" mouths, which make it seem they have another bug in their mouth
- Bugscope Team this is one of the palps -- one of the modified limb segments that helps the ant feel and maybe taste its food
- 11:37am
- Bugscope Team They may move rocks or concrete when they are tunneling, but I can't imagine they would eat them.
- Bugscope Team yes as Cate says if you look at them face on, especially, they often seem to have another insect in their mouths
- Teacher Is the type of mouth we are looking at considered a "chomp & chew" mouth?
Bugscope Team We generally call these "chewing mouthparts"---chewing mouthparts are considered the most general form of insect mouthpart
- Bugscope Team preset 7 shows the ant mouth
- Bugscope Team so those little feeler like things are part of the ant's mouth
- Bugscope Team great view of the jaws from the ventral side
- Bugscope Team Annie is an entomologist.
- Teacher We're taking a minute to draw an observation of the chewing mouthparts
- Bugscope Team Remember that you will always be able to access these images following your session, if you want.
- Bugscope Team You can also access the chat if you would like.
- Teacher We learned the word Entomologist at the beginning of our unit. We are all entomologists
- 11:42am
- Bugscope Team So if you drive around a lot, look at the various critters at different mags, you will build up a database of images.
- Teacher We are wondering what Annie did to learn to be an entomologist?
Bugscope Team I have an undergraduate degree in biology, then I went to graduate school and earned and masters degree in entomology and now I am working on my PhD
- Bugscope Team I am working on my PhD in entomology
- Bugscope Team Yes, the chat and full-size images are available after the session from your member's homepage so it's advantageous to try and explore as much as possible during the session
- Bugscope Team Here if you wanted you could take the mag down to see what the head is attached to.
- Bugscope Team cathy, your entire session is being logged, pictures and chat, and will be available to you on your bugscope member page: http://bugscope.itg.uiuc.edu/members/2007-047
- Bugscope Team Annie will always be studying bugs in some way.
- Bugscope Team you can see one of the tiny hands there.
- Bugscope Team here you can see its arms and claws at the end
- Bugscope Team The background, with the little bubbles in it, is carbon doublestick tape.
- Bugscope Team For my research, I collect beetles all over the world. I have been to California, Arizona, Mexico, and Costa Rica to collect beetles.
- Teacher Are the antennae off to the sides of the mouth or in the middle?
Bugscope Team The antennae are on the top of the head, we cannot see the bases of them right now. The antenna-like things in the middle of the ant's head are mandibular and maxillary palps...which help the ant to taste.
- Bugscope Team The smoother parts of the background are where Cate, who prepared this sample, put silver paint down on the tape to make a better electrical connection to the ant here.
- Bugscope Team The antennae are above the mouth but we are upside down and it is hard to see that.
- Bugscope Team they do curl down on either side of the mouth
- 11:47am
- Bugscope Team The electricity that flows through power cords is really just the flow of electrons. Because an electron microscope shoots a beam of electrons at the sample it must be conductive, like a power cord, to be able to get rid of the electricity instead of having it build up; thus the silver paint and carbon tape
- Bugscope Team now you can see the skinny little waist the ant has, like a wasp, and the abdomen below.
- Bugscope Team the samples are also coated with gold-palladium to help the excess electrons flow to ground
- Teacher The segmented abdomen looks like a roly poly; we didn't know there would be segments and hairs
- Bugscope Team this is the abdomen -- the 'stomach' of the ant
- Teacher What kind of ant are we looking at?
Bugscope Team Ants are difficult for me...I am not sure what kind this is.
- Bugscope Team there are often more hairs (setae) than we expect to see.
- Bugscope Team You can see how the abdomen appears to be layered. This is the same reason a knight's armor comes in many layered pieces. The exoskeleton is stiff, like the metal armor, so to bend or flex you need to have jointed or layered pieces
- Teacher What's the purpose of the hair on the abdomen?
Bugscope Team The hairs, which are more appropriately called setae, help the ant to sense its environment. The hairs are connected to the insects nervous system, and communicate all sorts of information about the ant's surroundings.
- Bugscope Team insects are a lot hairier than you would think
- Bugscope Team much of the hair, called setae, is used to help the insect sense its environment through the chitin
- Bugscope Team sure!
- Bugscope Team they use them to sense the environment around them since they have those tough exoskeletons
- Bugscope Team you can always go back if you want
- Teacher Were we looking at hairs or spider webs on the palps?
- Bugscope Team you are actually controlling the microscope
- Bugscope Team probably just tiny setae, although we can easily see spider webs
- Teacher We can't see the pictures in the preset area, This was below the ant mouth. I don't know what else we can view.
Bugscope Team cathy, try to expand your browser to the full screen, then you should see the presets...
- Bugscope Team now you can see the claw of the ladybug, and below the claw, to the right, are tons of tenent setae.
- 11:53am
- Teacher I did...
- Bugscope Team Still can't see the scroll-bar on the side of the presets list?
- Teacher No
- Teacher I got it
- Bugscope Team yay!
- Bugscope Team the presets are starting points you can zoom in and zoomout from there using magnify in upper right
- Teacher Are there air holes in the wing?
Bugscope Team Frequently. These are not the cleanest wing scales I've seen. Sometimes you can see a fascinating pattern of ribs and small holes. The reason for them is to reduce weight while remaining structurally solid and increasing surface area
- Bugscope Team this is nice
- Teacher Is there dust on the wings?
- Bugscope Team yes those are small holes in the scales, which are like feathers are to a bird
- Bugscope Team this may be silver paint that came up through the scale
- Bugscope Team each thing that looks like a potato chip is a scale
- Bugscope Team potato chip i like that
- 11:58am
- Bugscope Team ahh, now you can see some good ribbed pattern
- Bugscope Team you are doing a great job driving the 'scope
- Bugscope Team you can see the micron bar in the corner of the screen -- now it says 3 microns
- Teacher How big is a micron?
Bugscope Team one millionth of a meter. hair is usually on the order of 40 - 80 microns wide
- Bugscope Team a bacterium is normally 2 microns long, so if there are bacteria in here you could see them
Bugscope Team 1 microns = 3.93700787 × 10^-5 inches
- Bugscope Team a micron is a millionth of a meter
- Bugscope Team a one-thousandth of a millimeter
- Teacher Do you have our roly poly
Bugscope Team yes, try moving left from the ant, and you should see it...
- Bugscope Team a micron is also called a micrometer
- Bugscope Team yes, but I forgot to make a preset for it
- Bugscope Team we have the roly poly on here and we have to figure out how to tell you to navigate to it
- Bugscope Team here we see the ommatidia -- the eye facets -- of a fruit fly
- Teacher Great
- Bugscope Team you can also go south of the ladybug to get there
- Bugscope Team there are setae sticking out from nearly each 'corner' of the ommatidia
- Bugscope Team when you wish to drive to the roly poly, take the mag down as low as you can
- Bugscope Team these setae help the fruit fly gauge wind speed, I think -- Annie can tell us about that.
- Bugscope Team the setae on the fruit fly eyes, that is
- Bugscope Team now we see the body of the ladybug
- Bugscope Team so if you just go south you should run into it
- Bugscope Team the head is to the top here
- 12:03pm
- Bugscope Team oh are we there?
- Teacher So, this is the ladybuy or the rolypoly?
- Bugscope Team of you use click to drive, the trick is to also click to stop
- Bugscope Team this is the ladybug
- Bugscope Team pointy claws, and lots of them
- Bugscope Team you are going in the right direction
- Bugscope Team there it is!
- Bugscope Team it is in good shape from i can tell
- Bugscope Team a lovely face
- Bugscope Team good job driving!
- Bugscope Team you can tell these are not pictures -- this is live imaging you are doing
- Bugscope Team just like when we run the 'scope ourselves
- Bugscope Team it has a tiny pointed claw
- Bugscope Team they are called isopods because all of their feet are the same
- Bugscope Team roly polys are actually crustaceans
- Bugscope Team iso means the same, like in an isosceles triangle
- Bugscope Team and pod means foot
- Teacher Will asks, are the setae "furry"?
- Teacher What are all the bumps wee see on the claw?
- Bugscope Team bugs are actually crustaceans but the entomologists don
- Bugscope Team t want us to know
- Teacher Is the purpose of the claw to get prey?
Bugscope Team Roly polies are usually scavengers and decomposers, so they don't use their claws for catching, just for walking
- Bugscope Team sometimes setae will look softer than others
- Bugscope Team like the setae on the eye of the fruitfly and here, they look very spiny and sharp
- 12:08pm
- Bugscope Team what is interesting is that roly polies live in the dirt but do not get mites, and the bumps on their exoskeletons may help prevent mites from climbing onto them
- Teacher We have lobster crustaceans in Maine
- Bugscope Team whereas earwigs get mites, readily
- Teacher We counted 12 legs with a hand lens, is that correct?
- Teacher It looks like it lost one leg, we wonder if they can grow them back?
- Bugscope Team I am sorry we did lose some of the legs
- Bugscope Team I am not sure how many legs they normally have
- Bugscope Team but like Annie says, they are not really insects, which have six legs
- Bugscope Team lobsters and roly polies and crabs are all crustaceans, and they are related to insects, but are not in the same class. They are all arthropods
- Teacher Why was there what looked like tear in the ladybug's claw (Adam)?
Bugscope Team hmm, if you could drive back to the ladybug claw I can probably give you more details
- Bugscope Team If they were to live long enough I imagine they could regenerate their limbs
- Bugscope Team I missed it -- you mean it looked like it was torn?
- Bugscope Team well if you want to move back to it you can, we saved the area of the rolypoly
- Bugscope Team good job Cate
- 12:13pm
- Teacher Is the part of the roly poly we are looking at below and behind the legs the abdomen or do they have other kinds of body parts?
- Teacher How big is this roly poly in real life?
- Bugscope Team This roly poly was about 1 cm long.
- Teacher Does the roly poly have layers of exoskeleton like the ant?
- Bugscope Team I am not sure if the body cavity is called an abdomen
- Bugscope Team it has a thick exoskeleton very similar to that of the ant
- Bugscope Team it is sort of like an armadillo
- Bugscope Team I think it is called an abdomen in roly polies
- Bugscope Team with many plates to make it flexible so it can curl up into a ball when you bother it
- Teacher How does the roly poly turn itself over when it is on its back?
Bugscope Team i think they just flex and wiggle until they can flip themselves over
- Bugscope Team it has the advantage of being able to roll up
- Bugscope Team and it can flex very well -- it is not in as much trouble as some beetles which cannot easily right themselves
- Bugscope Team kind of a funny face
- Teacher What kind of mouth does it have? Chomp and Chew?
Bugscope Team The mouths of crustaceans are different that those of insects, but I would say they have mandibulate (or chewing mouthparts)
- Teacher Are the mouth parts in the center now?
- 12:19pm
- Bugscope Team Sometimes when we see a mouth like this, not moving, it is hard to imagine how dynamic it really is -- it would appear to be moving in many directions if it was chewing now
- Bugscope Team yes in the center
- Teacher Can we see our bug on the grass?
- Bugscope Team I guess people have chomp and chew mouths
- Bugscope Team yes
- Teacher Where do I find it?
- Bugscope Team we might have to ask Cate where it is
- Bugscope Team go to preset 2
- Bugscope Team or you can drive to the left of here
- Bugscope Team oops
- Bugscope Team there he is
- Bugscope Team this may be the shed skin of an insect
- Bugscope Team it could have crawled up out of the water and attached to this blade of grass before it metamorphosed into its adult shape
- Bugscope Team uh oh
- 12:24pm
- Teacher Sorry, we had a power problme
- Bugscope Team hi YES, no problemo, we are good again...
- Teacher We are wondering what this might be
- Bugscope Team Yay!
- Bugscope Team can you take the mag up so we can see it better?
- Bugscope Team insect larvae can have many limbs, not just six
- Bugscope Team I can't really tell what this is...it looks like it may been a caterpillar
- Bugscope Team sounds like a good guess so far
- Teacher We found it outside and wanted to see it on your microscope
- Bugscope Team often caterpillars that are infected with a pathogen will climb to the top of a stick or piece of grass and die.
- Bugscope Team ants have smaller eyes than fruitflies because they don't rely on them as much
- Bugscope Team The pathogen affects its behavior
- Teacher We are counting the sides of the facets of the compound eye - hexagon!!
- Bugscope Team there are wasps in the rain forest that happens to as well, aren't there?
- Bugscope Team maybe that is what is wrong with me -- a pathogen
- Bugscope Team back to the ant head
- Bugscope Team whoop!
- 12:29pm
- Bugscope Team that is the caterpillar
- Teacher We are wondering what the shell feature is
- Bugscope Team Yes, wasps can be affected by pathogens or by parasites. It also happens to flys, to grasshoppers, etc. Caterpillars seem to be particularly succeptible to pathogens (although that may be a function of caterpillars being better studied).
- Teacher We just discovered as we zoomed out that it was out caterpillar
- Teacher our caterpillar
- Teacher Thank you for a wonderful hour of exploring and finding out more about bugs!!
- Bugscope Team we had a good time -- Thank You!
- Bugscope Team thank you for all the good questions
- Bugscope Team thank you, great job Yarmouth!
- Teacher See you with the next class--Cathy
- Bugscope Team cathy, you did a great job driving the scope too!
- Bugscope Team we hope you all had fun
- Bugscope Team i'm gonna run up and get some lunch.
- 12:36pm
- Bugscope Team there is another session in a couple weeks I think
- Bugscope Team right, is that the "other class" cathy was refering to?
- Bugscope Team maybe
- Bugscope Team i was only guessing about that...
- Bugscope Team i would guess so
- 12:42pm
- Bugscope Team all im saying is maybe the same type of thing happened with them
