Connected on 2009-04-03 12:45:00 from , TX, US
- 2:04pm
- Bugscope Team one dividing bacterium
- 2:12pm
- Teacher Hello!
- Teacher We are ready to begin.
- Bugscope Team Hello Mrs K!
- Bugscope Team hello Mrs. Kmiec
- Guest is this a beetle of some sort
- Teacher May we drive?
- Guest what is this
- Bugscope Team sure the session is unlocked now
- Bugscope Team this is a pair of bacteria on the ladybug
- Bugscope Team the rod shaped thing near the middle is a bacterium
- Guest where do you get all the answers for us from?
- Guest is this a certain bacteria?
- 2:17pm
- Bugscope Team Aditi if you go to the Bugscope website and search for Sutherland you can find the transcript for your session.
- Bugscope Team we just know it is the rod-shaped kind- like e coli
- Bugscope Team they had just divided
- Bugscope Team now we are on one of the rolypolies
- Bugscope Team you can see some of the legs
- Bugscope Team there are 12 to 14 legs, we think
- Guest is this the undersidde?
- Bugscope Team but some are missing
- Bugscope Team yes this is the ventral side; the top would be the dorsal side
- Guest what do they use the hairs on their legs for
Bugscope Team those are probably used to feel what's going on around them, so they don't bump into things!
- Teacher Can we switch driving to Mrs. Strauss?
- Guest what is that tube like thing for
- Bugscope Team yes Mrs Strauss you are the supreme ruler.
- Bugscope Team see the antennae, swept back?
- Guest are there other names for a roly-poly
- Guest Connor - how do they feel around when legs are under body?
- Bugscope Team sowbug, pillbug, slater...
- Bugscope Team roly-polys are also know as pillbugs, woodlice
- 2:22pm
- Guest is a sow ubg what was on yesterday
Bugscope Team yes there was a sowbug yesterday as well
- Bugscope Team the setae on the legs are sensory, so they transmit tactile messages to the brain
- Bugscope Team and perhaps scent or thermal information as well
- Bugscope Team some of the setae are sensory
- Guest do they have good eyesight?
- Bugscope Team insects/arthropods have an exoskeleton
- Guest Where is it's mouth - Mykayla
- Bugscope Team that is, they have what would be like armor to us
- Guest what is the big area of fuzzy stuff
- Bugscope Team the mouth is obscured by all of the foodstuff on the face
- Bugscope Team they probably dont have good eyesight because they live in dark places. They mostly use their antennae to get around. Their eyes are located on their back
- Guest is that its legs?
- Bugscope Team those were the antennae, a second ago
- Bugscope Team this is food that the pillbug was eating
- Bugscope Team the tube to the left may be part of a plant
- Guest what do they eat
Bugscope Team they eat old dead plants and decaying leaves
- Guest Nevada - can fungi kill the rolypoly?
Bugscope Team I think the rolypoly is resistant, for the most part, to fungi. It lives among them, in damp areas. But once it dies the fungi will take over
- Bugscope Team this really is a decomposer
- Bugscope Team this is the antlion!
- 2:27pm
- Bugscope Team its very fearsome jaws are now closed
- Guest Tyler - does it use poison to kill prey
Bugscope Team We have read that it does and that it does not have venom.
- Bugscope Team this is its body, which looks funny like a turtle out of its shell
- Guest Addison - what part of US does it live?
Bugscope Team they live all over the US in sandy areas
- Guest Mykayla - what is an antlion
Bugscope Team it is the larva of an insect that kind of looks like a dragonfly when it is an adult. The larvae feed on ants and other small insects by digging a pit in the sand and trapping ants in it with their jaws
- Guest What kind of dirt do they live in?
Bugscope Team they like sandy soil. they can make their little conical traps in loose sandy soil
- Guest Are their hairs like eyes? Allison
Bugscope Team We think there are simple eyes on the other side of the head, but they are not very good eyes, so I think Allison is correct -- they depend on those sensory hairs to feel their environment.
- Bugscope Team now some more serious eyes
- Bugscope Team these are compound eyes
- Bugscope Team or this is part of a compound eye
- Guest What are hairs between the eyes - chris
Bugscope Team the hairs are sensory setae as well -- they allow the fly to sense the wind, as Annie says.
- 2:32pm
- Bugscope Team made up of many individual facets called ommatidia
- Bugscope Team The hairs between the eyes help the fly to "steer" in the wind
- Guest Why are there so many hairs to help steer?
Bugscope Team I bet there are many hairs for the same reason there are many eyes; there is a better feedback mechanism with so much data coming in.
- Guest Does each hexagonal eye see the same thing?
Bugscope Team The theory is that they see a part of the full image...and that what insects "see," what their brains process, looks something like a pixelated photo from a newspaper.
- Guest how many legs does it have
Bugscope Team Aditi is has six legs, as do all insects.;)
- Guest How good is their eyesight?
Bugscope Team really good. Their big compound eyes give them an almost 360 degree view of the world around them. Their compound eyes also probably help them see movement faster, so that everything around them looks like it is going in slow motion. This is part of the reason they can move out of the way of a fly swatter so fast
- Guest is that its mouth
- Guest wierd
- Guest are those hairs or spines
- Bugscope Team Some insects have better eyesight than others, of course.
- Bugscope Team those may be microtrichae
- Bugscope Team the wing!
- Guest Is it torn?
- 2:38pm
- Bugscope Team even the wing has setae -- microsetae -- on its surface
- Bugscope Team yes it has little tears in some places
- Guest why is there a texture in their wings
Bugscope Team the texture may help add surface area so that the wing can grab the air; it may also make the wing stronger and less apt to stick to things when it is wet
- Bugscope Team OOF
- Guest what is that bbump
- Guest Why does the mouth have hair?
Bugscope Team Insects are covered in "hair" because they use the hairs to sense their environment. Unlike humans, who have a layer of skin filled with nerve endings, insects are covered with a tough cuticle. The hairs stick out of the cuticle and connect to the nervous system (like the nerve ending in our skin), and they let the insect know what is going on around them. The hairs on the mouth are like taste buds.
- Guest Does the mouth have teeth
Bugscope Team the mouth only has a sponging mouth part, which it uses to suck up enzymes from rotting fruit, and it also has a pair of palps which it uses to taste/smell food
- Guest What are the creases in the wings?
Bugscope Team the creases are the wingveins
- Guest are there hair son their wings
- Guest what are wing veins for
- Bugscope Team hemolymph -- insect blood -- may be pujmped into the wingveins
- Bugscope Team pumped
- Guest May we take about a 20 minute break? We are building habitats for corn worms.
- Guest where do they prefer to live
- Bugscope Team habitat for wormanity
- Bugscope Team sure we will see you in 20!
- Guest do you like your job??
- Guest do ant lions eat their own kind
- 2:43pm
- Bugscope Team we think that antlions are so feisty that they would likely be pleased to eat their own kind
- Bugscope Team they are pretty aggresive
- Guest can we see a different part
- Bugscope Team yes we have cool jobs doing this
- Bugscope Team the 'scope is not responding, just a sec
- Bugscope Team truying to tpye
- Bugscope Team yay!
- 2:50pm
- Guest is this an ant lion claw
- Bugscope Team yes it is
- Bugscope Team Dude you got it.
- Bugscope Team the claw is closed together, probably because it died while angry
- Guest hwy do you put salt
- 2:56pm
- Bugscope Team Aditi we put salt on because we think it looks cool. It is not oridinary looking salt. And when you read in school that salt forms (NaCl) cubid crystals, you can say you have seen them up close.
- Bugscope Team cubic crystals
- Guest what do ant lions use their claw for?
- Bugscope Team well we think sort of like what we use our hands for -- to grasp things
- Guest are there other names for ant lions
- Guest is ant lion one word or two?
- Bugscope Team I don't know of any. When they metamorphose they have other names, whatever they turn into.
- Guest do you have a favorite bug
- Bugscope Team they are also known as doodlebugs because it leaves lines in the sand when it makes the pit
- Bugscope Team You can find it both ways, I think.
- Bugscope Team it would be one word, antlion because it is not really a lion
- Bugscope Team Oh yeah that's right. Doodlebugs.
- Bugscope Team Thanks, Annie.
- Bugscope Team and doodlebug would also be one word because it is not really a bug
- Guest how big do antlions get
- 3:01pm
- Bugscope Team He was on oxycontin when Murray called. He said "I am going to watch TV all night until Mom comes in the morning.'
- Guest what do ant lions turn into when they come out of their pupa?
Bugscope Team A large flying insect with long wings, big eyes and short antennae.
- Guest do they look sort of like dragonflys
Bugscope Team sort of yes, they have long thin bodies like a dragon fly. Dragonflies can't fold their wings back over their bodies like antlions do.
- Guest is it lacewings you are talking about?
- Teacher hello bugscope we are back
- Bugscope Team welcome back mrs. k!
- Bugscope Team Yay! Mrs K!
- Guest how often do they lay their eggs
Bugscope Team Probably once per season, depending on the species, the climate and altitude.
- Bugscope Team Antlions and lacewings are very closely related and so the adults look somewhat similar.
- Bugscope Team Mrs K let us know if you would like to drive.
- Bugscope Team Adult antlions have shorter antennae than lacewings. Lacewings hold their wings tentlike over their bodies when they are at rest.
- Bugscope Team Aditi we will want to pay attention to Mrs K and Mrs Strauss now -- this is their school's session.
- Guest What are the hairs for? Addison
- Bugscope Team this is the head of a ladybug, and you can see that one of the palps, on the right, is broken.
- Teacher why are there tubes coming down from the lady bugs head
Bugscope Team those tubes are its antennae
- 3:07pm
- Bugscope Team hairs, or setae, in insects/arthropods are necessary because they do not have skin with nerve endings in it
- Guest How long can an antlion live -Mykayla
- Teacher tucker says what is a palp and what does it do?
Bugscope Team they are used to taste or manipulate its food. they have little mechanosensory setae that does on them
- Bugscope Team insects/arthropods have an exoskeleton, which is sort of like if we had armor -- we would not be able to feel our surroundings
- Guest how long do ladybugs live
Bugscope Team ladybugs live for a few months, usually.
- Guest How do you know if it is a girl or boy?
Bugscope Team Mrs Strauss I am not sure you can tell with a ladybug whether it is a girl or boy without looking inside of its body -- some insects are like that.
- Bugscope Team sometimes ladybugs will make it through the winter if they can find warm sheltered space
- Guest Why do lady bugs have spots?
Bugscope Team they are a warning sign to other insects and animals, like the bright colors on a wasp or bee. They dont taste/smell good to animals and can make them sick.
- Bugscope Team some insects have ovipositors they use to lay eggs, so we know they are females
- Bugscope Team and some flies have their compound eyes closer together in males compared to females
- 3:12pm
- Guest What are the bumps
- Bugscope Team the bumps are its eyes!
- Bugscope Team looks like there are five or six on each side of the head
- Guest how long does it take for the eggs to hatch?
- Guest What are the stringy things on legs
Bugscope Team the stringy things are more setae -- more sensory hairs
- Teacher what is the flap on top of the mouth?
Bugscope Team that is either the frons or the clypeus
- Bugscope Team the mouth is vertically oriented, unlike ours
- Guest after how long in their life do they mate
- Guest What is that spongy stuff?
Bugscope Team the spongy stuff is some kind of debris -- it may be a biofilm, which protects bacteria as they grow in some species
- Bugscope Team I think the clypeus is a platelike structure on the bottom and the frons is the analogous structure onn the top
- Bugscope Team the frons is the forehead, the clypeus is the upper lip ;)
- Bugscope Team The clypeus is the platelike structure above the mouth/jaws
- Bugscope Team yaY! \Thanks Annie.
- Bugscope Team I had it right this morning.
- 3:17pm
- Bugscope Team the caterpillar is super cool because we can see where its stringy muscles have burst through the cuticle in many places.
- Guest what are all those hairs
- Bugscope Team because the cuticle rotted away!
- Bugscope Team the things that look like rope strands -- hanks of rope ( :) ), are muscles
- Guest why are there little bits of hair at the bottom of their legs
Bugscope Team Those are the prolegs
- Bugscope Team in some places if we look up close we can see the thin cuticle, inverted to show us the attachment points for the muscle
- Bugscope Team there actually is hair all over the caterpillar so it can tell whats going on around it. Sometimes a caterpillar will have lots of long spikey hair that act as a defense measure so bigger animals wont eat them (like birds)
- Guest do you know what type of butterfly this cattarpillar woulld become
- Bugscope Team and the caterpillar has those wild-looking prolegs, with little claws called 'crochets'
- Bugscope Team The hairs that Cate is describing can cause strong allergic reactions in some humans
- Bugscope Team Mrs Strauss we want to see the mite!
- Bugscope Team preset no. 5
- Guest Thank you from Mrs. Fenton's class. Have a good weekend. We had a great day.
- Guest What preset?
- Bugscope Team 5
- 3:22pm
- Bugscope Team nice
- Bugscope Team Thank You all. We have had a good day. This has been so much fun.
- Bugscope Team And a lovely mite to finish out.
- Bugscope Team thank you, you can come back to your member pages at any time to view the chat and images
- Bugscope Team this is a little different, with the tiny indentations in its cuticle
- Guest where do you get all these answers for us from?
Bugscope Team Aditi Annie is an entomologist, and we have learned a lot from her. We also read, look things up, and ask other entomologists when we get to work with them. Insects are another life form, fascinating.
- Guest thank you for answering all my questions
- Bugscope Team we have been doing bugscope for a while so we (who are not entomologists) have learned about this stuff over time. Annie is our resident bug-ologist so she corrects us when we are wrong or helps us out when we dont know
- Bugscope Team Scott and Cate know a lot about insects because they have been doing Bugscope for a long time. They know more about insects than many entomologists do!
- Bugscope Team Time to peel out...
- Guest annie, how long have you been anentomologist
Bugscope Team Since 2003
- Bugscope Team Thank You Annie, and Cate!
- Bugscope Team And Aditi have a good weekend.
- 3:27pm
- Bugscope Team that is when I started grad school
- Bugscope Team OK everyone are we ready to shut down?
- Bugscope Team yup
- Bugscope Team Talk to you all later
- Bugscope Team :)
- Bugscope Team see you!
- Bugscope Team grazie tante
- Bugscope Team you too Cate
- Bugscope Team bye
