Connected on 2009-11-19 15:30:00 from Hayward, CA, US
- 2:52pm
- Bugscope Team yo
- 2:58pm
- 3:03pm
- 3:13pm
- 3:19pm
- Bugscope Team Hello!
- Bugscope Team Still setting up.
- Bugscope Team This is Scott as well.
- Teacher Hey there! This is Michele at CSU! We will be starting in about 15 minutes. COOLIO images!!! WOW!!!!
- 3:24pm
- Bugscope Team um guess what this is
- Bugscope Team welcome back to bugscope
- 3:30pm
- 3:36pm
- 3:43pm
- Bugscope Team we are ready to roll
- Teacher WE are readfy to start. The images keep jumping.
- Bugscope Team scott is finding a cool preset, then we'll unlock it for you
- Bugscope Team ok, you should see controls now
- Bugscope Team this is a spider, the fangs, the simple eyes, of course setae all over
- Bugscope Team spiders have the ability to jettison (autotomize) their limbs if they sense venom from a bite in one of them
- 3:49pm
- Bugscope Team but that is not what happened to that spider
- Bugscope Team this is the back edge of a fly's wing
- Bugscope Team down below (above, actually) is the surface of another wing, OOF
- Bugscope Team a lot of the samples have mold on them, not a big surprise
- Bugscope Team please feel free to ask us any questions
- Bugscope Team the tiny hairs are microsetae
- Teacher What is a microsetae?
- Bugscope Team larger hairs are called setae, or trichae, or bristles or spines
- Bugscope Team I think of microsetae as hair-like, but they are not sensory
- Teacher What do they do?
- Bugscope Team some of the terms are used interchangeably
- Bugscope Team they may help give the wing lift, just as scales may
- 3:54pm
- Bugscope Team you find scales on moths, butterflies, skippers, silverfish, mosquitoes, and some weevils
- Bugscope Team scales seem to be like tiny feathers and may have a similar function, but some entomologists consider their purpose to be getting out of spider webs
- Bugscope Team I should say also that scales form color patterns in wings, for example
- Bugscope Team scales form structural colors as well as pigment colors
- Bugscope Team OOF
- Teacher OOF? You ok?
- Bugscope Team the ridges are close enough to each other to interfere with light refracted from them
- Bugscope Team OOF means out of focus, and it looks like you are fine
- Bugscope Team you are good at this
- Bugscope Team but try another preset if you wish
- Bugscope Team this is the tip of the spider fang
- Teacher This is a student
- Bugscope Team and you can see one of the poison pores
- Teacher Why aren't our questions coming up?
- Teacher on the left side?
Bugscope Team they will if we do this
- Teacher perfect
- Teacher thanks
Bugscope Team often when things are flying fast and furious, the kids won't look to the left
- Bugscope Team what we have found is that few people use it
- Teacher Which one is the poison pore?
Bugscope Team almost in the ceneter
- 3:59pm
- Bugscope Team center
- Bugscope Team now you can see how the spider holds its prey to it as it bites
- Teacher Will you navigate for us and show us where on this insect this fang is?
- Bugscope Team cool, scott will navigate, i can help answer questions
- Bugscope Team spiders inject venom into their prey; it dissolves the internal organs; and they suck it all back up like a milkshake
- Teacher What is juju?
Bugscope Team juju is our term for dirt, grim, junk, stuff we are not sure what it is, but it's not part of the insect
- Bugscope Team see the fangs now?
- Teacher Yes thank you?
- Bugscope Team you can see two or three eyes
- Bugscope Team the fangs go sideways, and they are at the end of the chelicers, or chelicerae
- Teacher Why can you see the juju?
Bugscope Team well, insects have lots of dirt on them, and that juju shows up in the scope just as well as the insects body parts do
- Bugscope Team it is hard to see all of that with the palps in the way
- Teacher Could you take us back to the juju?
- Bugscope Team all of the chelicers
- Bugscope Team so right here in the center -- that is probably venom that dripped out of the fang and dried
- Bugscope Team you can see the slit that is the poison pore
- Bugscope Team of course there was a mold spore on that as well
- 4:04pm
- Bugscope Team head of the praying mantis
- Teacher what is its purpose?
- Bugscope Team it eats other insects
- Teacher does it bite?
Bugscope Team oh yes, the female praying mantis actually bites the male's head off at some point
- Bugscope Team you bet
- Bugscope Team and eats it
- Bugscope Team they use those seriously spiked forearms to hold their prey while they eat it
- Teacher is that a big eyeball
Bugscope Team it's called a compound eye, and yes it's huge isn't it! it's made up of thousands of individual facets, called ommatidia
- Teacher how does it see?
- Bugscope Team yes it has good peripheral vision
- Teacher what is this?
- Bugscope Team if you had compound eyes you would be extra sensitive to motion
- Bugscope Team that is one of the forearms of the p.m.
- Teacher how does it function?
Bugscope Team the praying mantis ambushes its prey, and it grasps it with those badboy forearms, holds it tight while it chews into it
- Bugscope Team praying mantises are also known to kill and eat small birds, frogs, snakes, etc. they are pretty cool
- Bugscope Team ambush bugs have something like this as well, but they have piercing mouthparts
- Bugscope Team so they usually kind of hang out, sit still, but they are ready to pounce
- Teacher how does it kill its prey
Bugscope Team it bites and tears
- Bugscope Team here's a cool pic of a mantis feeding on another insect, using those forearms
- 4:10pm
- Bugscope Team i'm going to zoo in on the compund eye
- Bugscope Team see the individual facets? those are called ommatidia, and they each have a lens in them
- Bugscope Team so the compound eye is made up of thousands of individual lens's and that really helps the mantis' vision
- Bugscope Team it is hard to see the facets of the compound eye on a praying mantis, or a roach or cricket or grasshopper
- Bugscope Team this is the tip of one of the spider's arms/legs
- Bugscope Team you can see some web there
- Bugscope Team nice job with focus! you are getting good at this
- Bugscope Team you can tweak the focus and it will be better -- focus is up or down, so if it gets worse go the other way
- Teacher Is this web or hairs?
- Teacher explain mighty one
- Bugscope Team of course you figured it out nicely
- Bugscope Team heh
- Teacher we are not worthy
Bugscope Team you are doing great!
- Bugscope Team i think this is web, right scott?
- Teacher new student here by the way
- Bugscope Team I believe this is web, in part because it is so, apparently, flexible
- Bugscope Team check out the scale bar in the lower left, if you click on it it'll tell you more detail about what you are seeing
- 4:15pm
- Bugscope Team hairs or setae, or more likely fungal hyphae are not so flexible
- Bugscope Team and then of course, 1 um means 1 micron, which is equal to one millionth of a meter
- Bugscope Team the spider web, or silk, may not always be sticky. sometimes it is not
- Bugscope Team spiders can recycle their web by eating it
- Bugscope Team this is so cool, here
- Teacher what does tenent mean?
Bugscope Team it comes from spanish, tener, to hold, so in this case these setae are holders, they hold onto things. these are the tiny pads that help insects to climb walls and such, the tenent setae use a force called the van der waals force
- Bugscope Team those are the little sticky setae that some insects use to help hold onto glass, or the ceiling, for example
- Teacher where are we on the spider now?
- Bugscope Team the tenent setae are part of a pad called the pulvillus
- Bugscope Team this is a fly claw
- Bugscope Team now we see what we see on many insects -- the actual claws
- Bugscope Team there is a tendon inside the tarsi -- the terminal segments of the limb -- that pulls or loosens to close/open the claw
- Bugscope Team the tendon is called an unguitractor, in case you wondered
- Bugscope Team ah cool, these are salt crystals
- Bugscope Team 8000x, very cool
- 4:20pm
- Bugscope Team this scope can actually magnify up to 800,000x. but for this sample, it's betst to view at 40x-40,000x
- Bugscope Team it is NaCl, but it seems also to have had an anticaking agent added to it that causes it to form those cool shapes
- Bugscope Team if you lclick on the micron bar in the lower left corner you can call up the 'scope parameters
- Bugscope Team we are at a large working distance, so it might be hard to get good focus at a high mag
- Bugscope Team click, that is
- Bugscope Team spider eyes
- Teacher is the eye covered in hair?
- Bugscope Team note that insects and other arthropods have lots and lots of what looks like hair, and what we have been calling setae
- Teacher new student
- Bugscope Team hi, welcome to bugscope
- Bugscope Team yeah, zoom out to get a better look at the whole insect
- Bugscope Team this is an antler
- Teacher is this from a moth?
- Bugscope Team not sure
- Bugscope Team try going west, there ya go, keep going... this is the praying mantis
- Bugscope Team so that was the close up of a praying matis antler, from atop it's head
- Bugscope Team probably used to sense its environment, find food, etc.
- 4:25pm
- Bugscope Team so this is the praying mantis forearm, used to grasp prey when it feeds
- Bugscope Team praying mantis are exclusively predatory insects, they feed on other insects, and in some cases other animals like birds and mice
- Bugscope Team of corse all insects have an exoskeleton, that is a hard outer shell
- Bugscope Team the exoskeleton holds in all the guts and stuff
- Bugscope Team ah, this is cool, this is a moth scale
- Bugscope Team moth scales have these holes in between the ribs, that helps to keep the weight down of the scale
- Bugscope Team usually the holes are bigger, this is an unusual scale i think?
- Teacher How do they use their scales?
- Bugscope Team yeah this is an unusual scale, grey or brown
- Bugscope Team one thing that scales are very good for is escaping from spider webs
- Bugscope Team the insect can shed its scales and slip out
- Bugscope Team it can shed the scales that get stuck to the web, that is
- 4:30pm
- Bugscope Team scales also form color patterns that help species recognize each other
- Bugscope Team and the colors may be from pigments, but they may also be due to the ridges
- Bugscope Team and this is the compound eye of the moth
- Teacher We are at the end of our session, see you next week, thanks alot...Nick
Bugscope Team you did great, thank you!
- Bugscope Team the preset has drifted a bit, that chuck is probably just juju. if you want to see the mold spore i think that is north from here
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team nice session everyone, we are done, goodbye!
