Connected on 2009-01-27 11:00:00 from , IL, US
- 10:59am
- Bugscope Team s'okay :)
- Bugscope Team i just cleared the chat, so when the kids login they won't see that
- Teacher The kids are here now
- Bugscope Team great! we are ready
- Bugscope Team hello all!
- Bugscope Team Yay! beetle head
- Bugscope Team its like a mini rabbit
- Bugscope Team with scary mouth parts
- Bugscope Team Looks a lot like a longhorned beetle--but I am not sure that it is--it doesn't look quite right
- 11:04am
- Bugscope Team hi alyssa, fiona, and megan
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Student hi guys
- Student that's cool
- Bugscope Team Let us know when you have questions
- Bugscope Team this is beetle head looking strait at us
- Student hi
- Bugscope Team welcome to bugscope!
- Student What are we looking at?
Bugscope Team this is the head of a beetle, it's looking strait at us
- Bugscope Team hi Alexa and Gerard
- Bugscope Team straight at us
- Student what are those mouth parts called
Bugscope Team it has a set of jaws for chewing, and underneath you can see 2 sets of palps which it uses to taste/manipulate its food
- Bugscope Team Alex is a creative speller
- Student Hi!
- Student where aree the eyes
- Student what are we looking at
- Bugscope Team Jake the eyes were on the sides of the head.
- Bugscope Team you can see them at a lower mag
- Bugscope Team these are tiny setae on the face of the beetle
- Bugscope Team notice those hairs, they are actually called setae (see-tee-
- Bugscope Team now you can see the eyes on either side of the head
- Bugscope Team and you can se the antennae at the corners of the head
- 11:10am
- Bugscope Team Fiona the microscope is about as big as a large desk. The column is on one end and is over 6 feet tall -- that's where the sample is.
- Bugscope Team setae stick through the exoskeleton of the insects, attached to nerves underneath
- Bugscope Team here is a wasp stinger.
- Bugscope Team only female wasps and bees and ants can sting
- Bugscope Team and not all wasps or ants sting
- Bugscope Team Cate is right -- the business part of the microscope is about the size of a fridge.
- Student Why does it hurt so much if the end is so pointy?
Bugscope Team The insect injects a poison when it stings, which causes the pain. And despite how blunt it looks from here it is still pretty pointy.
- Bugscope Team if you take the mag down you can see where this is on the body
- Student Does the stinger have any feeling hairs?
Bugscope Team Some wasps do have sensory setae on the "stinger," just not at the very tip
- Student are those long hairs feelers too?
Bugscope Team Fiona many of the long hairs are used like feelers -- they are sensory setae. But some are not just for sensing touch; they can also be thermosensory or chemosensory. The insect can sense hot and and as well as sensing different chemicals in the air.
- Bugscope Team you could tell from looking at the stinger that it did not have recurved spines on it that would help it stick into your skin -- it could be used to sting repeatedly
- Student what do they do with there claw?
Bugscope Team each leg has a claw and they are used to grab onto things. It could be their food or it could be whatever they are climbing on
- Bugscope Team some wasps don't use their stingers to sting humans. Some wasps use their stingers to stun or paralyze insects that they eat or into which they lay eggs.
- 11:15am
- Student what is the crust on the claw ?
- Student what is the crusty/mold things on the claw
Bugscope Team dirt, dust, mold, grody stuff
Bugscope Team that is some "juju" from critical point drying it-- we critical point dry things that are in ethanol generally
- Bugscope Team if you dry them without doing that, they tend to shrivel up and look unrecognizeable
- Student do the silverfish have scales?
- Bugscope Team this is a silverfish, which has tiny scales on it like a butterfly or moth
- Student where are the eyes
Bugscope Team you cant see them very well, but i think they are underneath the antennae (they look kind of roundish and big)
- Bugscope Team silverfish are considered by many to be the most primitive insects
- Bugscope Team mosquitoes also have scales
- Student how long does this creature live
Bugscope Team probably a couple of months if it is lucky.
- Bugscope Team they do not have wings at any point in their lives.
- Student does a silverfish swim
Bugscope Team no, they like to live in dry places. It gets the name silverfish because they are streamlined and slick, and they have scales like a fish.
- Student Where is the mouth?
Bugscope Team Y.ou can just barely see it. It is the narrow line between the antennae
- Student Can they breathe under water and above water?
Bugscope Team They cannot breathe underwater. They would certainly drown if they got into water.
- Student the antennea look like they are divided into segments. Why?
Bugscope Team Because cuticle is not very flexible, many of the body parts are divided into segments with individual plates of cuticle. That allows the insect to move around efficiently. Insect cuticle is like a knight's coat of armor
- 11:20am
- Bugscope Team One website I found says that silverfish can live 2 to 8 years and moult perhaps four times a year. That is unusual, not what we would expect.
- Student What are the little coil things sticking out of its head?
Bugscope Team those are antennae, and they are also made of a number of segments, as Fiona had noted earlier.
- Student Do they have a nose?
Bugscope Team insects breathe through spiracles, like nostriils, that are located on every segment of the body. Each cell in the insect has to have its own supply of oxygen, since insect "blood" does not carry oxygen like our blood does. Insects smell with little hairs all over their bodies...instead of through their spiracels
- Student where are the eyes?
Bugscope Team The eyes are usually on the sides of the head, and often but not always below the antennae
- Student how do they breath
Bugscope Team insects usually breath through holes in the sides of their abdomen, they are called spiracles
- Student where are the eyes??
Bugscope Team we can't see the eyes here.Termited have very reduced eyes, generally speaking. They don't need big eyes since they live underground and in cavities
- Bugscope Team this is cool
- Student who do you prepare the bug for the microscope
Bugscope Team I prepare the bugscope samples most of the time. I made this one. Either schools will send in their own insects to look at, or we have a pretty big collection of insects to choose from.
- Student what is in the antenna.
Bugscope Team Jake the antenna has many of the sensory structures the insect uses to gather data about its environment. It is often the place where most of the chemosensory setae are found. If you look at an ant you can imagine that it uses its antennae more than it uses its eyes, and some ants don't even have eyes. The termite, as Annie said, is similar in not relying on its eyes as much.
- 11:25am
- Bugscope Team cles
- Student the antennea looked like it was just some threads weaved together, what are they made of?
Bugscope Team the threads are extensions of the antennae. Male moths have to locate the females who release a chemical into the air to let the males know where they are. Male moths have to sense very vvery small amounts of the chemicals that the females produce. And they sense those chemicals with receptor setae on the antennae. So, the antennae of many male moths have evolved in such a way to maximize the surface area that can be covered in the receptor hairs. Thus the crazy hairs.
- Student What are we looking at right now?
Bugscope Team this is a scale on the surface of a fly's compound eye
- Bugscope Team the round things are the individual facets of the eye, called ommatidia
- Bugscope Team this is the moth head
- Student Why does it have such big eyes?
Bugscope Team a lot of flying insects have very large compound eyes, each one of those facets in the eye has a lens in it, so they have really good vision. that helps them when they are flying
- 11:30am
- Student what are the things on the eye?
Bugscope Team what things exactly? There were setae (remember they are insect hairs) coming out of them, and also the compound eyes are bumpy-looking, and the bumps arecalled ommatidia which are thought to each get a visual of the area around them
- Bugscope Team this is the very tip of the proboscis of an aphid
- Student what are we looking at
- Student BYE!
- Student thank you for that. It was awesome!
- Bugscope Team you can see, inside the fold, the sharp parts of the proboscis that stick into plants
- Student thankyou
- Teacher our class is over now. Thank you so much
- Bugscope Team Oh... Thank You!
- Bugscope Team thanks for your questions and driving, you were all great
- Bugscope Team Ms S is this the last class for today?
- Student Adios!
- Teacher yes it the end of my only science class for the day
- Bugscope Team ms. smaha, all the chat and images are saved on your member page:
- 11:35am
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-150
- Teacher thank you. I will look at it.
