Connected on 2008-09-22 09:00:00 from , TN, US
- 8:55am
- Bugscope Team Good morning!
- Bugscope Team hello welcome to bugscope!
- Teacher Hello
- Teacher This is the IT guy for now, while Mrs. Angelo is getting ready.
- Bugscope Team hi IT guy, i'm an IT guy too
- Teacher Great! Are there folks here from several locations?
Bugscope Team all the admins are bugscope members, but yes they are logged in from different locations
- Bugscope Team i just unlocked the session, you should be able to see controls on your right side of the browser window (mag, nav, focus, adjust)
- Teacher Ok. Will the session be limited then to just our 3rd grade class?
Bugscope Team yes, this is a session for your class only.
Bugscope Team sometimes guests might log in, but if you want the session to yourself, we can boot off guests, no problemo
- Teacher And you guys/gals.
- Bugscope Team yes the session will be limited to your class -- your school
- Bugscope Team sometimes we have guests who log on; they show up in yellow on the list above left
- Teacher Don't think we mind at all. Kids will be back in a few.
- Bugscope Team all of us in green are here to help, to answer questions from the kids
- Bugscope Team okay, we's be ready!
- 9:00am
- Teacher kids are coming in. They're pretty excited!
- Teacher What bug are we looking at?
Bugscope Team this is an owlfly larva
- Bugscope Team it has powerful jaws that grab insects
- Bugscope Team it's adult form looks a lot like a dragonfly
- Bugscope Team so both the larva and the adult are predatory
- Bugscope Team the "antlers" are the opened jaws
- Bugscope Team it is related to antlions and lacewings
- 9:07am
- Bugscope Team adult owlflies look a lot like dragonflies with long antennae
- Teacher Do they fly?
Bugscope Team the adults do, these don't
- Bugscope Team yes, the adult fly in the evening.
- Teacher Are those eye lashes?
Bugscope Team they do kinda look like eye lashes, but no, those are called setae. (see-tee) setae are little hairs that stick out from the exoskeleton. they function kid of like cat whiskers: they help the insect to sense its environment
- Bugscope Team the larvae obviously don't fly, because they have no wings
- Bugscope Team the eyes are the things sticking out with bubbles on it
- Teacher Why is it called an owlfly?
Bugscope Team they get their common name because the adults have huge eyes and fly at night (like owls). They are also predators, like owls
- Teacher These Q's are being asked by our students btw. Thx.
- Teacher Cool.
- 9:12am
- Bugscope Team you can get to another insect by clicking on a preset to the right
- Teacher Is the larva about 1 cm in size?
Bugscope Team notice the scale bar on the lower left in the image, that gives you an idea of size. 1 um = one micron = one millionth of a meter
- Bugscope Team i think it's smaller than that
- Bugscope Team they grow larger as they get older
- Teacher Why are there so many hexagons in a moths eye?
Bugscope Team this is a compound eye, and each hexagon is called an "ommatidia", each ommatidia has a lens in it, which is stuck looking strait ahead, they can't move their lens like humans can. and they are shaped like hexagons so that the eye surface can curve a little bit as needed, which gives the insect a wider view range.
- Teacher Is that a piece of dust on the moth's eye?
Bugscope Team and yes I think that is a piece of dust or dirt
- Bugscope Team each of the individual parts of the compound eye are called facets
- 9:17am
- Bugscope Team they are shaped as hexagons because that is the best shape to allow for the curvature of the eye
- Bugscope Team flying insects will usually have larger eyes than insects that live underground. The moth's eye are so big that it usually gives them almost a 360 degree view of what's around them
- Bugscope Team you might have to focus a little more to see them better
- Bugscope Team thats the way!
- Bugscope Team nice focus job!
- 9:22am
- Teacher Wowwww! :)
- Bugscope Team wow, 22,000 times magnification, this is some of the higher mag we'll see when looking at insects
- Teacher Why does it look like they have tiny eyes on this single facet?
- Bugscope Team sometimes we go higher, say to 40,000x, but rarely more than that. even so, the scope can magnify up to 800,000x!
- Bugscope Team these could be similar to the cones that are used for night vision, which makes sense since moths fly at night
- Bugscope Team i'm afraid with the eyes, this is probably the best we are going to be able to see of them
- Bugscope Team but you are doing a great job!
- Teacher Ok. we're going to look at the Ladybug now.
- Bugscope Team and with these presets, you can take down the mag so you can get a better idea of where you are at
- Student we somehow got bumped out a second. But we're back.
Bugscope Team ack, sorry, not sure what happened. welcome back!
- Bugscope Team this is a place where the wing is suspended over the elytra, which is the hard shell on the ladybug's back
- Bugscope Team Ladybugs are actually beetles in the family Coccinellidae (pronounced Cox-in-el-i-dee)
- Bugscope Team as a student, now, we gave you control again
- 9:27am
- Student Abigail asks what those spike looking things are?
- Bugscope Team Most ladybugs are predaceous, and eat other insects. But a few feed on plants and are considered agricultural pests
- Bugscope Team so this is the edge of the wing, and those are setae that extend off the edge
- Bugscope Team if you take the mag lower you will be able to see where you are
- Bugscope Team this ladybug was a little beat up
- Bugscope Team but it is cool to be able to see something we don't normally see
- Bugscope Team at the bottom of the image now we see the 'shell,' or the elytra
- Bugscope Team to the upper right is the abdomen
- Bugscope Team usually we mount insects on their dorsal side -- the back -- so we can get a ventral view -- the side that has the legs on it
- Bugscope Team at the top of the screen you see folded forelimbs
- Student Cody asks what that bump thing was in the middle of the high magnafied image with the spikes?
Bugscope Team that might have been more juju (dirt or dust or something similar)
- Student Previous image.
- Student William asks what part are we looking at now?
Bugscope Team we are looking at the underside of the ladybug. this is somewhere on its abdomen
- 9:33am
- Bugscope Team ladybugs like to die with their legs clasped together as well, which you can see with its upper legs
- Student Autumn asks what are the bubbles?
Bugscope Team that is the double stick carbon tape, which we lay all the insects on
- Bugscope Team now we are looking at the head, but it is behind those forelegs
- Bugscope Team when we mount insects on the aluminum stub we put down the tape you see, and it has those bubbles in it
- Student Does a ladybug have compound eyes?
Bugscope Team yes they do
- Bugscope Team the area around the ladybug is where Cate also put silver paint down to help the ladybug stick and to make a good conductive path for the electrons to escape
- Bugscope Team but we can't see them from this view
- Bugscope Team the eyes are on either side of the head, and they are streamlined into the head
- Bugscope Team they don't stick out far
- Bugscope Team this is what the scales look like at high magnification
- Bugscope Team they relfect light in colors that depend on the spacing of those ladder-like structures we saw at high mag
- Bugscope Team reflect, that is
- 9:38am
- Student Malia asks are these the scales that are on its wing?
Bugscope Team yes they are
- Bugscope Team this is what makes a moth or butterfly feel soft when you touch it
- Bugscope Team the scales come off very easily
- Bugscope Team to us they seem like dust
- Bugscope Team but they help insects that have them by letting them slip out of spider webs
- Bugscope Team now you can see the fine details of the scale
- Bugscope Team there will also be, sometimes, little pigment graniules in the spaces we see now
- Student Brianna asks do all insects have compound eyes?
Bugscope Team Most insects do. There are a few very primitive insects have have very primitive eyes, and there are some insects that live in caves or other dark places that have lost their eyes since they live in places where they don't need to see
- Bugscope Team now you may be able to go a little higher in mag if you wanbt
- Bugscope Team want
- Bugscope Team nice job driving the microscope
- Student Mikhail wants to know if those are holes in the wing?
Bugscope Team yep! wing scales have those holes so the wings stay light, make it easier to fly
- Bugscope Team Monarch butterflies are not very tasty, and spiders will often just cut them loose if they get stuck in their webs
- Student Ragan asks why do they look like spiderwebs?
- 9:44am
- Bugscope Team the latticework makes it look much like a spiderweb, doesn't it?
- Bugscope Team I had not noticed that before.
- Bugscope Team the spaces between the vertical lines are about 2 micrometers long
- Bugscope Team that is as long as a rod-shaped bacterium
- Bugscope Team if there were bacteria here we would be able to see them
- Student Holly and Kiera want to know what those vertical lines between the connecting lines?
- Bugscope Team all of the vertical and horizontal lines hold the shape of the scale together
- Bugscope Team scales are very much like feathers, on a bird
- Bugscope Team this is one of the beetle tarsi
- 9:49am
- Student Mrs. Angelo wants to know what is a Tarsi?
- Bugscope Team tarsi are what the 'forearm' segments of the leg or arm are called
- Bugscope Team the individual segments are sometimes called tarsomeres
- Bugscope Team now we also see three claws
- Student Elijah asks what are the spikes?
- Student William says they look like dinasaur are bones. :)
- Bugscope Team the spikes are probably for protection, and they also help the beetle feel what is touching it
- Bugscope Team they are kind of like bones on the outside rather than the inside
- Bugscope Team insects have exoskeletons -- the 'bones' are on the outside
- Student Aibgail asks do spikes also help him catch prey?
- Bugscope Team not like us
- Student Ragan asks are all beetles legs like that?
- Bugscope Team they are often very similar
- Bugscope Team but some beetles have pads on the legs that allow them to stick to vertical surfaces
- 9:54am
- Student Mikhail asks are bettles predators and prey?
Bugscope Team There are more species of beetles than any other group of insects in the world. Some beetles are predators and some are primarily plant or fungus eaters. Lots of other animals eat beetles, like birds, mammal, other spiders, etc. So yes, beetles can be predators or they can be preyy
- Student Eli wants to know if some beetles are crustaceans?
- Student This is a very cool image of a mite!!!
- Student Kiera asks what the large spike it to the left of the mite?
Bugscope Team that is a setae on the millipede
- Bugscope Team seta*
- Bugscope Team crustaceans are different from beetles, but they do look similar in some ways
- Student Eli wants to know if the mite is alive?
- Bugscope Team the mite "went down with the ship" when the millipede died -- it died too
- Bugscope Team these particular mites, which we see fairly often, do not have eyes
- Student Are those probes attached to the millipede?
- Student If so, why is that?
- 10:00am
- Student Ragan asks how long do mites live, and can they fly?
Bugscope Team There are lots of mites, and they can live anywhere from a few weeks to more than a year. They cannot fly--mites are arachnids, and they don't have wings. There are no arachnids that fly.
- Student All the third graders say, !
- Student Ms. Angelo says, the reason this was operated so well
- Bugscope Team not a lot of people study mites, so we don;t know too much about them
- Student is because our computer teacher was operating the microscope! (confession!)
- Student All the 3rd graders say "Thank you very very much!!!"
- Bugscope Team That you all!
- Bugscope Team thank you students!
- Bugscope Team and carolyn, you did a great job too! thanks!
- Student Thanks. This was very cool!
- Bugscope Team thank you all
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Student real quick, are those mite's probes actually attached to the millipede?
- Bugscope Team yeah they are stuck down
- Bugscope Team sometimes you can see it more clearly -- they have little rounded ends
- Bugscope Team like the lunar module
- Student are they feeding that way or something?
- 10:05am
- Bugscope Team we think they feed on what comes along on the surface, presently we do not think they penetrate the cuticle and feed off of the hemolymph
- Bugscope Team often it is tempting to consider that, though
- Student Still looks cool though. Thanks.
- Bugscope Team they are not well studied,a
- Bugscope Team thank you for asking -- please consider coming back next year
- Student We certainly will. I'm sure you have some idea of how valuable this is, so again.
- Student Thanks a million!
- Bugscope Team this is our favorite thing to do
- Student Am I able to save any of these images?
Bugscope Team carolyn, check our your bugscope member page, all chat and images are saved: http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-069
- Bugscope Team they are all saved to your database
- Bugscope Team you have access to them
- Student Great! Thanks. Signing off.
- Student Got it! See you next year!
- Bugscope Team cool! great sessions
- 10:11am
- Bugscope Team session locked, rxl off, session disabled. nice session everyone!
