Connected on 2009-04-30 10:00:00 from , GA, US
- 9:42am
- Teacher Good morning we are here and ready to go
- Bugscope Team hi, welcome to bugscope, we are still setting up presets
- Bugscope Team if you totally want to start right now, we can, but we can also make more persets for you
- Teacher we will wait until you are ready, we are eating our lunch and looking at the pictures
- Bugscope Team ok, cool
- 9:48am
- Bugscope Team we are almost done here...
- Bugscope Team one more preset
- Bugscope Team well, maybe a couple more...
- Bugscope Team ok, we are ready!
- Bugscope Team welcome!
- Bugscope Team Ready to roll.
- Bugscope Team you should see controls on your right, navigation, magnify, focus, etc.
- Bugscope Team you can also click any of the presets, and the scope will move to that location
- 9:53am
- Bugscope Team if you have any problems seeing the images (black image) try refresh (F5) to refresh your browser and that should fix it
- Bugscope Team this is the underside of an ant's head
- Teacher We're ready as well
- Bugscope Team you can see its mouthparts; part of its thorax, and its antennae
- Bugscope Team the magnification is 41x here, and you can see the scale bar in the lower right, the ants head is about 1.25 mm wide
- Bugscope Team lower left
- Bugscope Team ok, if you have any questions about controlling the scope, please just ask, otherwise, it is yours, drive away!
- Teacher Mrs. Stanley is reading your comments to the kids
Bugscope Team ah, so the kids can't see the screen?
- Bugscope Team ah yes, scale bar is in lower right
- Bugscope Team ahhhhh, scale bar is in lower left... left...
- Teacher just clicked on center andwe lost the picture
- Bugscope Team hit f5
- Bugscope Team can you refresh (F5)?
- Bugscope Team see now?
- Bugscope Team the little branched structures we see now are palps
- Teacher How many parts are in the mouth and what does he actually bite with?
Bugscope Team it uses with jaws to bite things with, they are near the top of the image
- Teacher do I want to click on drive to move the picture up and down
- Bugscope Team use click to center
- Bugscope Team click to center is a little easier to use than click to drive, but you should try both and use whatever you prefer
- 9:58am
- Bugscope Team the jaws themselves are at the top of the image
- Bugscope Team they open like a gate
- Bugscope Team when using click to drive, just remember to click once to start moving, then you must click again to stop
- Bugscope Team some ant jaws are so small that we would not be able to feel them bite us
- Teacher What are the hair-like things on the jaws?
Bugscope Team those hairs are called setae (see-tee). they are kind of like cat whiskers, in that they help the insect to sense its environment
- Bugscope Team those are setae
- Teacher What do they do?
Bugscope Team setae (see-tee) are very cool, and very helpful to the insects. they stick through the exoskeleton, to nerves underneath. so if an insect passes by a lot a wind or a yummy dinner, those hairs can transmit those feelings to the nerves, and thus the insect knows about its surroundings
- Bugscope Team the palps, which have setae on them, are used to help the ant manipulate and also taste its food
- Teacher Okay..cool, but remember we're first graders - glad we don't have to get our food that way
- Bugscope Team insects have TONS of setae on them, that's very noticeable under a microscope!
- Bugscope Team setae allow insects to feel things as well as taste things and also determine if they are hot or cold
- Bugscope Team so some of the setae are like taste buds
- Teacher What is that sticking out of the moth's eye
Bugscope Team that is another seta
- Bugscope Team the eyes also have these hairs (setae), and they are believed to help the insect when flying
- 10:04am
- Teacher Do they have only one?
Bugscope Team they have 2 compound eyes
- Bugscope Team the hairs (setae) on the eyes send wind speed and direction to the bug brain, and help it to fly like an eagle!
- Bugscope Team you can see that the eye has lots of facets, which we call ommatidia
- Teacher We meant the hair sticking out of this compound eye
Bugscope Team we'll often find many setae on compound eyes of flying insects
- Bugscope Team the compound eye is made up of hundreds of bumps. those bumps are actually individual sockets, called ommatidia, each one has a lens in it
- Bugscope Team Hello all!
- Bugscope Team we think that insects with compound eyes, with multiple lenses for each eye, see many images, and their brain needs to process those images into something that makes sense
- Bugscope Team if you had compound eyes it might be confusing, but it would give you better peripheral vision -- you'd be able to see more of what is around you without moving your head
- Teacher Juliana would like to talk to Cate - wonders why she is so quiet
- Bugscope Team and also, if you had compound eyes you would be able to see movement more quickly -- that is why flies are hard to catch
- Bugscope Team sorry juliana, I'll try to be more talkative
- Teacher Why does it have all those hairs?
Bugscope Team The hairs serve a variety of functions. Some sense touch, some sense smells, some sense vibrations, and some are for decorative purposed
- Teacher They look like hooks
- 10:09am
- Bugscope Team kind of like Velcro
- Teacher Why would it need velcro
- Bugscope Team purposes
- Teacher Does it feel scratchy
Bugscope Team The hairs are so small that we most likely wouldn't be able to feel them. I know I don't.
- Teacher Do you know what the first insect was on earth? We couldn't find it in our research
Bugscope Team The oldest insect fossil is a type of springtail--Rhyniella praecursor. It is over 380 million years old
- Bugscope Team depending on where the tiny setae are, there may be an advantage to being able to stick to things, especially if the setae are on the tarsi, which are like our forearms
- Bugscope Team yay cool!
- Bugscope Team these are called 'tenent' setae
- Bugscope Team I may have spelled Rhyniella incorrectly
- Teacher Does that have a layman's name
Bugscope Team It is just a springtail...not any special type of springtail. That particular species is now extinct.
- Teacher Are these the setae as well?
Bugscope Team yes they are They are specialized to allow the insect to walk on walls
Bugscope Team well, yes but they are special setae, that help insects stick to wall and such
- Bugscope Team Sorry...scientists are sometimes not very good about giving common names to species
- Teacher Understood
- Bugscope Team they act like little suction cups and are found on the ends of their legs
- Teacher Are these gooey?
- 10:14am
- Teacher Must be why they can stick to the ceiling
- Bugscope Team these setae are called tenent setae, they are not gooey, but good thinking! they use a special force called the van der waals force, to "stick" to walls
- Bugscope Team Yes! We can tell which insects would be likely to climb on walls or ceilings, and which ones would not.
- Bugscope Team the van der waals force doesn't work with stickiness, it uses a very small force of attraction. gecko's have them for sure, and i hope i'm right about these setae using van der waals too????
- Teacher where is the fly's claw located on his body
Bugscope Team the fly has six legs, and at the end of each leg is a pair of tiny claws
- Bugscope Team now we see the claws, and also the little pad, called the pulvillus, that has the tenent setae on it
- Teacher what is the most important part of the claw?
Bugscope Team It depends on what surface the fly lands on..if it lands on something soft, the claws will grip the surface. If the fly lands on something hard and there is nothing to grip with the claws, the center sticky part is most important.
- Teacher why would a fly need a claw if it has a suction cups
Bugscope Team well, it might use the claw to manipulate food, or fight with other insects, or to help itself move around, in ways that the tenent setae wouldn't help it do so
- Teacher why don't insects have larger claws?
Bugscope Team Mostly the claws are proportional to the size of the insect. Big beetles have big claws.
- 10:20am
- Teacher Since it's an insect and it has an exoskeleton, what's inside the claw?
Bugscope Team It is a hollow tube with nerves and probably a little bit of muscle and bug blood.
- Bugscope Team most insects have claws, and they open and close when a tendon called an unguitractor is moved up or down inside the tarsus
- Teacher What is a true bug - we don't remember that one
Bugscope Team well, it's an order of insects, called Hemiptera, and there are lots of varieties of them. a common type of true bug is a shield bug
- Teacher What are the holes for
Bugscope Team The holes all have a seta (insect hairs) in them. You will be able to see that better if you zoom in on them.
- Teacher Is that the eye of the true bug
Bugscope Team Yes it is!
- 10:25am
- Bugscope Team A true bug has incomplete metamorphosis and has half hardened wings
- Bugscope Team you can see the holes better as well, and if you look closely you will be able to see little nubbies sticking out which are the hairs
- Teacher an incomplete metamorphosis of what bug
Bugscope Team True bugs have incomplete metamorphosis. That means that when it hatches out of the egg it looks like a miniature version of the adult.
- Teacher What's the stuff next to the hairs
Bugscope Team well, i think that's juju. juju = stuff we aren't quite sure what it is, but it's probably dirt, grime, junk, etc.
- Bugscope Team Contrast that to complete metamorphosis where there is a larva, a pupa, and an adult
- Bugscope Team bugs get dirty. if they were little kids, their parents would be telling them to bathe once every hour!
- Bugscope Team here is one of the japanese beetles you sent!
- Bugscope Team The antennae are the things that look like golf clubs
- Teacher is this his mouth we're seeing
Bugscope Team yes, right above those little finger looking things is the mouth
- 10:30am
- Teacher what the little finger looking things
Bugscope Team Those are called palps. They are kind of like little hands and tongues rolled into one. They help the insect to taste and to manipulate its food
Bugscope Team they are the beetle's palps that help the beetle to taste or manipulate its food
- Teacher we think he's smiling - must be thinking about his food
- Bugscope Team :)
- Bugscope Team Yum, bean plants
- Teacher do those hairs help filter his food
- Teacher he looks like he has problem skin - what are all those bubbles
Bugscope Team Just plain old dirt and goo
- Teacher Do we have one where we could look at a thorax or abdomen
- 10:35am
- Bugscope Team preset #2 is a spiracle (which is way cool in its own right), but those spiracles are usually on the abdomen, so you could zoom out on that preset to see an ant abdomen
- Bugscope Team spiracles are breathing holes on some insects
- Bugscope Team the abdomen on the ant here is going to be the big round area to the lower left
- Bugscope Team Spiracles are like nostrils in insects
- Bugscope Team well, that's odd, on this ant the spiracle is near the back...
- Bugscope Team cool
- Bugscope Team Nostrils on different parts of the body
- Bugscope Team very good driving gwen, you are doing great
- Bugscope Team the abdomen on this ant is to the left
- Bugscope Team the legs are attached to the thorax
- Teacher What's that on the abdomen - does he need to take a bath as well?
Bugscope Team yeah, i think so, sometimes we do find very interesting things on insects, like mites or pollen or brochosomes, etc.
- 10:40am
- Teacher what are the folds for - what do they do
- Bugscope Team good questions, i'm just not sure though, maybe it helps the abdomen to increase/decrease in size without ripping?
- Bugscope Team the folds are like the folds you see on an armadillo, they are like plates for movement.
- Bugscope Team You can also think of a suit of armor
- Bugscope Team thanks cate!
- Bugscope Team the spikey balls are the pollen grains
- Bugscope Team very cool, now those ball like things are pollen grains
- Teacher We hope the wasp doesn't have allergies
- Bugscope Team :)
- Bugscope Team we tried putting one of your bees on here, but they were just too juicy for the vacuum
- Bugscope Team annie can clarify, but i think some insects can have allergies, or sensitivities to certain chemicals, etc.
Bugscope Team Insects can be repelled by certain chemicals or smells, but generally they don't have skin allergies like we do.
- Teacher Are those like the other gates?
Bugscope Team yes that's right!
- 10:45am
- Bugscope Team bees and mosquitos get riled up if you breathe on them. It's the CO2.
- Teacher Is that part sticking out the tongue
Bugscope Team yes, but it's called a proboscis
- Bugscope Team the largest proboscis in the world is the elephant trunk!
- Teacher is it like a straw
Bugscope Team Yes, very very similar. The suction is created with muscles in the insect's head
- Teacher what would he pull through the straw
- Teacher Any teeth?
Bugscope Team The closest it has to teeth are its hinged jaws
- Bugscope Team Well, in some insects they suck plant juice and garbage juice and blood and nectar through their proboscis. In this insect, I am not sure what he would pull through the straw. Probably plant nectar.
- 10:50am
- Teacher we're looking for the stinger
- Bugscope Team i checked for it earlier, I think it's hiding in its abdomen
- Bugscope Team Too bad, the stinger is hiding
- Bugscope Team you can see the trap door where it comes out though
- Bugscope Team this is on one of your rolypolys
- Bugscope Team pill bugs are not insects, but rather crustaceans
- Teacher We didn't know that
- Bugscope Team so they are like tiny crabs, i bet they aren't as good to eat tho
- 10:55am
- Bugscope Team yep they are terrestrial crustaceans
- Bugscope Team I bet they taste like dirt
- Teacher Yummmm
- Teacher We all studied a different insect and have a couple of questions - are you game
- Bugscope Team sure
- Bugscope Team sure, glad we have annie here to answer ;)
- Bugscope Team Absolutely..I have been in grad school for six year studying insects. I am ready for anything you can throw at me
- Bugscope Team ahem, six yearS, plural. They did teach me to spell too
- Bugscope Team here is a really cool color picture of a walking stick, by the way: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Ctenomorpha_chronus02.jpg
- Teacher We couldn't find a Monarch butterfly - are all the little hooks like the ladybug had different colors on the butterfly
- Bugscope Team many people have walking sticks as pets!
- Teacher are they affectionate
Bugscope Team you know, i really have no idea! but walking sticks are bread and sold as pets so i imagine they are pretty tame
- 11:01am
- Teacher How is it that the catepillar change into a butterfly in such a small space
Bugscope Team The change happens at the cellular level and it all happens within the body of the caterpillar. So many small changes in many cells results in a big change in form. It is remarkable, isn't it?
- Bugscope Team I think they make good pets because they are such a weird looking insect and they are also easy to keep
- Bugscope Team bred i mean, not bread, sorry
- Teacher The kids would like to know why you decided to become insect scientists
Bugscope Team I always like to be outside. I always enjoyed capturing insects and frogs and learning about the world around me. When I was in high school, I was thinking about going into theater and music, but decided that I would be much happier in a job where I would be outside learning about nature. That is when I decided to be an entomologist
- Bugscope Team i am an IT person with the group, and i've learned everything i know about insects through my involvement with Bugscope. it's such a great learning experience for me, but it's not my field of study
- Bugscope Team Alex and I don't actually study insects like Annie, but we have come to learn a lot of insects through bugscope. We find they are so interesting to learn about because they all have cool things about them like special features or little bugs living on them
- Bugscope Team annie is the true expert among us
- Bugscope Team annie is an entomologist
- Bugscope Team Alex and Cate are very very knowledgeable about insects, don't let them fool you. We all learn a lot through Bugscope.
- Bugscope Team The rest of us have become more and more interested in insects and other jointed arthropods, which are endlessly fascinating
- Bugscope Team thanks annie :)
- Teacher We have learned a lot as well - thank you so much once again (3 times now) for another wonderful session with our bugs
- Bugscope Team And Scott too!
- Bugscope Team thank you, you did a GREAT JOB in your session, one more thing....
- Bugscope Team thank you for all your great questions! you can visit your member page at any time to view chat and images from today at http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2009-032/
- Bugscope Team all the chat and images are saved to your member page: http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2009-032
- 11:06am
- Teacher Thanks...see you next year
- Bugscope Team Thank you!
- Bugscope Team good bye!!
- Bugscope Team Thank you!
- Teacher adios amigos
- Bugscope Team adios, hasta luego!
- Bugscope Team au revoir!
- Bugscope Team see you next year!
- Bugscope Team nice session everyone, l8tr!
