Connected on 2009-02-19 10:00:00 from , MS, US
- 9:37am
- Bugscope Team session is ready to go
- 9:47am
- Bugscope Team I think if I had super long legs and a small body I might need stronger tenent setae to help stick down in the wind.
- Bugscope Team it's like everything including the claws is elongated.
- Bugscope Team yeah
- 9:56am
- Bugscope Team Good morning!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team hello, let us know when you have any questions, and you can go ahead and start driving the scope when you are ready
- Teacher What is it?
Bugscope Team this is a fly head
- Teacher My students said ewwwww!
- Bugscope Team hehe we like to go for that gross out factor sometimes
- Bugscope Team you can see its compound eyes and its tongue, and one of its claws on the left, waving to the students
- Bugscope Team one of the compound eyes is caved in
- Bugscope Team you can take the mag up if you wish
- Teacher Will you go through all of the insects on the menu?
- Bugscope Team and you can drive to the eye to take a look at the individual ommatidia -- the facets of the eye
- 10:01am
- Bugscope Team you can click on a preset when you'd like and the 'scope will drive you to that place
- Bugscope Team today we have available a leafhopper, bumblebee, a parasitic wasp, a small beetle, an assassin bug, mosquito, a couple owlfly larvae, a butterfly, a fly, and salt from wendy's
- Bugscope Team now we see the mouthparts, and to the right you can see pollen grains!
- Bugscope Team pretty cool
- Bugscope Team the head is covered with microsetae -- tiny little hairs
- Bugscope Team if you click to adjust, you can change the brightness if it is too bright on your screen
- Bugscope Team you are driving A $600,000 scanning electron microscope from your school
- Bugscope Team the small pods are what we think is pollen
- Bugscope Team we are on the butterfly proboscis (AKA tongue)
- Teacher why are the hairs moving on the butterfly tongue?
Bugscope Team the electron beam is powerful enough to move small things in the microscope if they aren't held down well enough. These hairs are a good example of that
- 10:07am
- Teacher cool!!
- Teacher What does the owlfly larva use its claw for?
Bugscope Team Owlfly larvae are fierce predators, and they have large jaws to impale their prey. The claws help them grasp things, like tiny hands.
- Bugscope Team Owlflies are related to antlions and look much like them
- Bugscope Team this is one of the eyes, which are on little stalks
- 10:12am
- Bugscope Team the threadlike stuff is fungus that got on the owlfly larva after it died
- Bugscope Team those orblike things are eye facets
- Teacher what is buglike creature on the orbs?
Bugscope Team those are setae (insect hairs) this type of insect has, which are very different looking than any other setae we usually see
- Bugscope Team they look more like cacti
- Teacher Yeah , you're right.
- Bugscope Team this is a type of true bug called an assassin bug
- Bugscope Team it preys on other insects and pierces them with its proboscis
- Teacher It looks pretty fierce
- 10:17am
- Bugscope Team some caterpillars exude little droplets of nasty chemicals to dissuade other insects from eating them. the assassin bug can spear them and avoid those droplets
- Teacher That looks like antlers
Bugscope Team these are the powerful snapping jaws of the owlfly larva
- Bugscope Team they are much like those of a snapjaw ant
- Bugscope Team this is the tarsus (the forearm segments of the arm or leg) of a super tiny weevil
- Bugscope Team it has a smooth round body but you can see it has these flattened setae or perhaps scales on its arms/legs
- Bugscope Team see the micron scale bar in the lower left corner of the viewing screen?
- Bugscope Team this small beetle is upside down, and i apologize since i was in charge of making the sample. It was very very small and hard to grasp
- Bugscope Team the units are the Greek letter 'mu' and an m. Meaning micrometer, or micron. A micron is one millionth of a meter or one thousandth of a millimeter
- 10:23am
- Bugscope Team Cate did a great job not mashing the little beetle, which was so small it looked like the head of an ant
- Bugscope Team bacteria, which we could see if there were any, are often just 2 microns in length
- Teacher What is the tubelike structure in the mouth area?
Bugscope Team that looks to be a broken palp. Palps are used to manipulate/taste food
- Bugscope Team you can see that the little beetle also has jaws that close from the sides, like a gate
- Teacher It looks like a bunch of grapes or olives
- Bugscope Team yes they do!
- Teacher It looks like each one has a fingerprint
- Bugscope Team now we can see individual features on the surface of the eye facets
- 10:28am
- Bugscope Team ants usually have much less complex eyes with very few ommatida
- Bugscope Team compound eyes usually have this hexagon pattern to them
- Bugscope Team that's because the shape of the hexagon most fits the curvature of the eye
- Bugscope Team you can see that there are spiracles on each segment of the abdomen on this wasp, and although we cannot see them all now, there is one on each side
- Teacher Thank you for explaining this information to us.
- 10:34am
- Bugscope Team wasps and bees have four wings, unlike flies, which have two
- Bugscope Team you're welcome, you are doing a great job
- 10:40am
- Bugscope Team dw is there going to be a second class on today?
- Bugscope Team the chat and images from today's session can be reached anytime you want at http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2009-009/
