Connected on 2010-09-16 11:00:00 from Roswell, GA, US
- 9:49am
- Bugscope Team sample is pumping down
- Bugscope Team we have two mosquitoes, two houseflies, one large green-eyed fly, a ladybug, some salt from Wendy's, a fruit fly, an earwig, a bee, and a wasp
- 9:56am
- Bugscope Team almost ready to start the gun...
- 10:03am
- 10:10am
- 10:16am
- 10:23am
- 10:29am
- 10:35am
- 10:41am
- 10:48am
- Bugscope Team Good Morning!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team I will be back in a minute. You are free to drive if you would like. Swift has control of the 'scope right now.
- Teacher Thank you. We are so excited.
- 10:53am
- Bugscope Team please let me know if you would like to drive, Chat1
- Teacher Jozefov would like to drive.
- Bugscope Team this is the surface of the ocellus -- a simple eye -- of a honeybee. and it has these tiny spheres called brochosomes on it, from a leafhopper
- Teacher Cool
- Bugscope Team each is a few hundred nanometers in diameter, so you are imaging at the nanoscale
- Bugscope Team this is one of the two mosquitoes on the stub
- Bugscope Team you can see that the image is vignetted today -- an aperture inside of the 'scope needs to be moved. And we cannot do that ourselves, the service engineer has to do that.
- Teacher we are seeing a blue background on our screen, is that normal?
Bugscope Team hit Refresh, or F5
- Bugscope Team you can see the proboscis
- Bugscope Team no
- Teacher Thanks
- Bugscope Team did that help?
- Teacher yes it did
- 10:58am
- Bugscope Team good deal
- Bugscope Team please let us know when you have any questions, and we will try to answer them
- Teacher what are exactly are we looking at on the mosquito?
- Bugscope Team here you can see the frilly antennae, and the eyes, with all of their facets, and the bases of the antennae, which are like donut/pillows
- Bugscope Team the thing with the two lobes near the bottom of the screen is the compound eyes
- Teacher can we see the stinger on this
- Bugscope Team arched toward us, and cleft, and a little out of focus in the upper left of the screen is the tip of the proboscis
- Bugscope Team males do not bite, but they still have a proboscis
- Bugscope Team I am at the microscope, and I just moved to it
- Teacher what are we looking at right now
- Bugscope Team you can see that the proboscis has lots of tiny scales on it, like feathers
- Teacher thanks,
- Teacher why do males not bite you
Bugscope Team males do not need a bloodmeal, like females do to lay their eggs
- Bugscope Team the part that bites you would be inside; it is called the fascicle, and it is black, with six pieces that work togther
- Teacher why don't males bite
- 11:03am
- Bugscope Team males sometimes do not eat, and sometimes they drink nectar like some other insects
- Bugscope Team salt crystals!
- Teacher after mosquitoes bite, do they die
Bugscope Team well after they lay their eggs they do
- Teacher what is this?
Bugscope Team those are salt crystals from a Wendy's restaurant, except the one on top right
- Teacher why are the salt crystals cubes
Bugscope Team the sodium and chloride that make up salt form cubic crystals. sugar, for example, does not form cubic crystals.
- Teacher what purpose do mosquitoes serve in the world?
- Teacher what is the object on the top right?
Bugscope Team that is also a salt crystal, but it is more normal one; it does not have those cool incised features like the Wendy's salt
- Bugscope Team i'm not sure what mosquitos do for the world
- Bugscope Team they are the most dangerous creature
- Bugscope Team mosquitoes are a food source for other insects, bats, birds, and animals that may be more understandably beneficial to us
- 11:09am
- Bugscope Team sometimes we wonder how and why certain insects/bacteria/animals exist, and we do not see right away that they are part of a web of nature that functions as a whole
- Teacher thank you great answer
- Bugscope Team if you think about bees, for example -- if there were no bees, many of the plants and fruits we eat might not be pollinated and thus would not produce
- Teacher what is this?
Bugscope Team this is the face of a ladybug
- Bugscope Team ladybugs like this are especially fond of aphids, which are plant pests
- Bugscope Team you can see the compound eyes on either side of the head, and you can see at least one antenna, to the lower left, and you can see the jaws and the mandibular and maxillary palps
- Teacher Bottom left bump- what is it
- Teacher how long do ladybugs live?
Bugscope Team they can live for around a year if they hibernate over winter
- Bugscope Team palps are like little limbs that serve as helped mouthparts
- Teacher what do the spots mean?
Bugscope Team the spots may help them recognize each other, and they also serve to highlight the red color, which is a warning that they are not good to eat
- Teacher what is the thing on the bottom left of it's face
Bugscope Team the antenna
- Teacher why do some ladybugs have red coverings and some have orange?
Bugscope Team it probably has to do with what they eat, and also their genetic makeup; many of the critters we think of an ladybugs are Asian beetles, which are quite similar and likely another related species
- 11:15am
- Teacher why does it have hair? What purpose does it serve?
Bugscope Team they are used to help the insect feel what's around it. It can feel with some, smell/taste with others
- Bugscope Team insects have exoskeletons; they don't have skin with nerve endings in it like we do. it would be like if you wore a suit of armor and could not feel what was touching the surface of your armor
- Teacher what is that
Bugscope Team the big round thing is a fly compound eye
- Bugscope Team so the tiny hairs, which are called setae ('see-tee'), help the insect sense its environment, as Cate says.
- Bugscope Team the part on top is the antennae
- Teacher what is the pointy thing at the top of the eye
- Bugscope Team this is a big long fly we did not recognize
- Bugscope Team its head is almost all eyes
- Bugscope Team even to the left there are three little bumps that are simple eyes
- Teacher what is a compound eye
- Bugscope Team compound eyes give insects very good peripheral vision -- they can see all around their head without turning to look at something
- Teacher what are the little bumps directly on the eye?
- 11:20am
- Bugscope Team they are called compound eyes because they are composed of, in this case, thousands in individual facets, or lenses, called ommatidia
- Teacher very interesting!
- Bugscope Team now, I bumped the mag up, you can see 60 or so ommatidia
- Bugscope Team you can see dirt too, and also a few setae sticking up at the corners of the ommatidia, or eye facets
- Teacher really cool!
- Bugscope Team if you had compound eyes you would also be able to register changes in your visual field very quickly, and thus it would be hard to catch you
- Bugscope Team be sure to click on other presets if you would like
- Bugscope Team Jozefov has control now, so let us know if someone else would like to drive
- Bugscope Team yes the little ones, called ocelli, are 'simple' eyes
- Bugscope Team i mean the 3 on top of the head do
- Bugscope Team this is a housefly's claw, at the end of one of its six legs
- Teacher Why does the housefly claw have spikes all over the claw?
Bugscope Team they help it to feel when things are around it
- 11:25am
- Bugscope Team it can open and close like a tiny hand, and it has little sticky pads on it to help it hold onto vertical surfaces
- Bugscope Team some insects, like Monarch butterflies, have little spines on their claws that they can use to smell what they have landed on
- Teacher What are the two wing-looking things?
Bugscope Team those are the pulvilli. They are filled with tenent setae which are sticky hairs used to allow the fly to walk on walls
- Teacher how long is the lifespan of a fly?
Bugscope Team it is said to be, generally, 2 weeks to a month; they can live longer in a lab setting
- Bugscope Team this centipede is so big that I could not make a preset of the whole head
- 11:30am
- Bugscope Team but we are looking at the fangs right now, and the one we see on the right has a poison duct in it.
- Teacher does a fly have a nest? where do they lay their eggs?
Bugscope Team they often lay their eggs in their food. Fruit flies lay their eggs in rotting fruit for instance
- Teacher Does the poison come out of the fang from the fang duct?
- Teacher Why does the fang look lighter at the top?
- Teacher what is the thing at the bottom right?
- Teacher What is the big circle that surrounds the fang?
Bugscope Team I think it is the base of the chelicer -- which is the muscular part that drives the fang.
- Bugscope Team so it is part of the jaw, or mandible
- Teacher What are we looking at?
- Teacher what is the tiny worm looking thing to the left of the fang with the duct?
- Bugscope Team now you can see it better, although it is vignetted by an aperture in the microscope
- Bugscope Team oh!
- 11:36am
- Teacher do you have a spider on the disk?
Bugscope Team no this is actually as close as we get to spiders today -- they have very similar fangs
- Bugscope Team that is likely a plant fiber, and/or it could be some fungal hyphae
- Teacher do they run out of venum?
Bugscope Team I think if they are lucky enough to keep eating, they can keep generating it.
- Bugscope Team it's really cool we can see this pore today. we don't often get to see them because they are hidden by something or gunked up
- Teacher What is a mite?
Bugscope Team mites are related to spiders, and there are lots of different types of them. these are blind and live on the exoskeleton of their host.
- Student We might need explanation of words hyphae
- Teacher we are ready to send controls to swift. thank you - our class enjoyed this
- Bugscope Team hyphae are the thread-like components of fungus
- 11:41am
- Bugscope Team a number of hyphae make up a mass called the mycelium
- Teacher Thank you so much for your wealth of information
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Student we are having trouble with Swift - please switch control to student 1
- Bugscope Team student 1 has control!
- Student what is this showing?
- Student What are we look ing at
- Bugscope Team this is a mite that we found on the exoskeleton - on the body -- of a fly
- Student what is the bug on
Bugscope Team it was on a housefly
- Student what is this picture showing
- Student it riminds me of somthing
- Student are those bugs we are looking at?????
- Student what is a beeve aculis
Bugscope Team the bee ocellus is one of the three simple eyes on the top of the head of the bee
- Bugscope Team those are brochosomes, which are tiny submicron particles produced by leafhoppers
- Student whwhat is this
Bugscope Team we are seeing some individual scales
- Student what is in the backround
Bugscope Team the background we see now is the surface of the cuticle of a mosquito
- Student what are those leaf things
- Student what kind of bugs are they
Bugscope Team these are from a mosquito
- Student what are those
- Bugscope Team they kind of look like ruffled potato chips right?
- Bugscope Team those are scales, which are kind of like feathers
- Student what is tis
- Student i like bees
Bugscope Team there is a bee on the stub today
- 11:47am
- Student why are they so ugly?!?!:I
- Student What are the things in the back round/
Bugscope Team those are microsetae -- super tiny hairs
- Student why is it in black and white
Bugscope Team when we use electrons instead of light to collect images, we get the images as signal, in grey scale, rather than as wavelengths of light, so we do not see color
- Student what is this now
- Student what color are they in real life
Bugscope Team brown or tan
- Student is this a bug
Bugscope Team we are zoomed in on part of a mosquito
- Student what is that
Bugscope Team this is the tongue of a fly -- the sponging mouthparts
- Student What is this
- Student what in the world is this
- Student is that a mouth
Bugscope Team yes it is
- Student we have students 2-6 ready for you to pass controls when ready
Bugscope Team student 2 now has control of the'scope
- Student What is that
- Student how do you swich control
Bugscope Team we can do it from here; it's easy for us
- Bugscope Team now you can see the head, and you can see that the fly is lying on its back
- Student What in the world is that
- Student Is this a head of an ant?
Bugscope Team at first I thought it was a wasp, which are related to ants, but then I found that it has halteres, which only flies have
- 11:52am
- Bugscope Team the bubbles are part of the carbon tape
- Student what is that
Bugscope Team this is a male mosquito
- Student What is that
- Student what the bumbs
Bugscope Team at the bottom of the image, those are the facets of the compound eye
- Student Are those feathers
Bugscope Team they look like feathers but they are just frilly parts of the antennae
- Student Is that thing that is sticking out near his mouth the sucker
Bugscope Team you can see it curving over the head to the left there
- Student That looks cool!
- Bugscope Team we are sorry that we cannot go to low mag without seeing those shadows around the view; it is not normally like that
- Student it looks like a pinappple
Bugscope Team yes!
- Student where do they mostly live
Bugscope Team anywhere there is fresh water, and it is not too cold
- Student What are the little eye things
Bugscope Team the things that are large and rounded are the compound eyes; those furry donut-like things were the pedicels -- the bases of the antennae
- Student what are the things behind the eyes
- Student What the heck is that
Bugscope Team heh it is a compound eye of a fly whose head is almost all eyes
- Student why do they have bumbs on the eye
- Student is that real
- Student Is that real
Bugscope Team yes it is real -- it is a kind of fly that lives around here but we did not recognize
- Student Oh my gosh
Bugscope Team the facets of the eye are individual lenses called ommatidia
- 11:57am
- Student That is really cool
- Student How many compact things are on the eye?
Bugscope Team I think there are a few thousand per compound eye
- Student please pass to student 3
- Student What is on that eye
Bugscope Team there is some dirt, and there are also a few tiny setae sticking through
- Bugscope Team this is cool
- Bugscope Team this is another mosquito
- Student cool
- Student why does it look like it is smiling
Bugscope Team it just looks that way, but it could have been happy
- Student What is on that
- Student Is it a male or female mosquito
Bugscope Team males have the frilly antennae
- Bugscope Team you can see the compound eyes at the bottom, the pedicels on top, and the base of the proboscis in the upper middle
- Student are those ticks
Bugscope Team they are mites; they function kind of like ticks on insects
- Student It looks like an allein up close
Bugscope Team yeah!
- Bugscope Team face huggers
- Student what are they on?
Bugscope Team this is the body of an earwig -- of a female earwig
- Bugscope Team the mites -- these mites -- do not have eyes
- 12:03pm
- Student how big are they ?
Bugscope Team you can barely see them with just your eyes -- less than a millimeter long
- Student Are those claws
Bugscope Team yes! just below where we are now
- Student is that a moth ?
Bugscope Team those are sticky pads on a fly claw called a pulvillus. They allow flies to walk on walls
- Student are those thorns
Bugscope Team they are bendy bristles that let the fly know when it is touching something
- Student Is that a fly
Bugscope Team it is one of the claws of a housefly; we do not have any horseflies today
- Student is that a horsefly
- Student are those things their eyes or ears
Bugscope Team those are just part of one of the claws
- Student can you put student 4 in charge
Bugscope Team got ti
- Bugscope Team got it, sorry
- Student are those claws
Bugscope Team the claws are just below, just out of view right now
- Bugscope Team this is a housefly
- Student is that the mouth of a fly?
Bugscope Team yes!
- Bugscope Team from the bottom of the head
- Student Is that a mouth of a ant or fly?
- Student is that a house fly
Bugscope Team yes it is. generally, with flies, if the eyes are separated like this, it is a female
- Student are those teeth
Bugscope Team this fly spits up on its food and sucks up what the saliva has digested
- Student what is that
- 12:08pm
- Student where do they live ?????
Bugscope Team almost everywhere it is not cold
- Bugscope Team so it does not have teeth, but no insect has real teeth
- Student is that a mouth
Bugscope Team this is a spiracle which is a breathing hole
- Student what is that
- Student Is this a mouth of a fly?
- Bugscope Team spiracles are kind of like noses; they lead to tracheae, which are tubes that feed air into the insect
- Bugscope Team this is a fruit fly
- Student is that a head
Bugscope Team yes it is!
- Student Is that a fruit fly
Bugscope Team yes it is!
- Bugscope Team to the right is its tongue
- Student is that the tongue
Bugscope Team yes, to the right, it is kind of like a tongue
- Student does it live around here
Bugscope Team yes they live all around us, everywhere there are people unless it is super cold
- Student where does it live
- Student what are the things above the eyes??
- Student is that a ladybug head
Bugscope Team yes it is -- you can see the compound eyes on either side
- Student it that a lady bug head?
Bugscope Team yes it is
- 12:13pm
- Student can you pass to student 5
Bugscope Team done!
- Bugscope Team this is the tip of the proboscis of a male mosquito
- Student is that a tong
Bugscope Team it was sort of like a sheath/tongue; inside would be the fascicle, which is the biting part
- Student is that the head
- Student is that what stings us and takes our blood
Bugscope Team yes but only females bite and take blood meals, which they need in order to be able to lay their eggs successfully
- Student are those things on a bug
Bugscope Team no this is salt from a Wendy's restaurant.
- Student is that a cube
- Student what type of salt
Bugscope Team sodium chloride -- normal table salt
- Student whats the 4m mean
Bugscope Team that is the micron bar; right now it reads 1 mm, or 1 millimeter, but often it reads something like 4 um. The 'u' like character is a Greek 'mu,' and it means 'micro,' which means 1 millionth.
- Student where did it come from
- 12:18pm
- Bugscope Team so a micrometer is a millionth of a meter
- Bugscope Team see how the micron bar now reads 11 um?
- Student How do you transport the stuff with out breaking it
Bugscope Team the insects, you mean? we are careful, and we use forceps
- Bugscope Team bacteria -- the rod-shaped ones -- are 2 micrometers, or 2 microns, long
- Student is that a tounge
Bugscope Team those are the tenent setae on the sticky pad -- the pulvillus -- that helps the insect stick to vertical surfaces
- Student can you switch controls to student 6?
Bugscope Team got it
- Student is it a foot
- Student what is a forceps
Bugscope Team forceps are grasping tools, and in this case they are tweezers
- 12:24pm
- Bugscope Team sorry I could have just called them tweezers, but now you know a new word...
- Student what is this
- Bugscope Team speaking of forceps -- these are the pinching parts of the earwig
- Student what is a earwig
Bugscope Team an earwig is an insect with a pincer tail that is a plant pest
- Student are thes the earwigs mouth pinchers
Bugscope Team the mouth is at the other end
- Student what is the backgrond
Bugscope Team carbon doublestick tape
- Student How do you put large things under the micro scope
- Student what are thoes round thing behind the pinchers
- Student What is the round thing in the back round
Bugscope Team those are little craters in the tape
- Student What is the background
- 12:29pm
- Student please pass controls to stahl
Bugscope Team got it
- Teacher what is the bee's ocellus?
- Bugscope Team that is a simple eye, of which there are three
- Bugscope Team the ocelli are simple eyes that help flying insects with direction
- Bugscope Team these are particles that come from leafhoppers that are said to help keep eggs from drying out
- Teacher kind of like a navigator?
Bugscope Team they help the insect triangulate with the sun so they know where they're going
- Bugscope Team so the bee must have bumped its head into a leafhopper
- 12:34pm
- Bugscope Team the ocellus is the dome we can hardly see now because it is the background
- Teacher what are the small round things
Bugscope Team those are only a few hundred nanometers across
Bugscope Team those are brochosomes that only leafhoppers make
- Bugscope Team so you are in the nano scale right now
- Teacher where are the scales on a mosquito
Bugscope Team the mosquito has scales all over its body, but these are on the thorax -- the chest area
- Teacher what are the little hairs we see
Bugscope Team those are microsetae, super tiny hairs
- Bugscope Team some hairs also tell the insect about the environment's temperature
- 12:39pm
- Bugscope Team now you can see where we were
- Teacher are those the eyeballs at the top
Bugscope Team yes they are!
- Teacher how do the hairs tell the temperature
Bugscope Team some of the hairs are what is called 'thermosensory,' so they can sense hot/cold
- Teacher between the eyeballs, is that what sucks the blood
Bugscope Team that is the base of the proboscis, yes
- Bugscope Team some of the hairs are chemosensory -- they can smell chemicals
- Teacher how many eyes does a mosquito have
Bugscope Team they have 2 compound eyes, but as to how many ommatidia they have, i'm not sure hundreds
- Teacher how does a mosquito know where to find blood
Bugscope Team they can find you when you breathe CO2, and some can find you because you are warm
- Teacher what is an ommatidia
Bugscope Team they are the small round components of the eye. they kind of look like bean bags
- 12:44pm
- Bugscope Team this is the proboscis
- Teacher how exactly do they suck the blood
Bugscope Team what they do, is, inside this sheath is a fascicle, and it is smoother, and muscular. the fascicle has four cutting components, and a siphon tube, and another part I don't know the purpose of. the fascicle sticks into your skin, and the saliva helps thin your blood to make it flow, and the blood enters the mosquito through the siphon tube.
- Teacher do mosquitos come out in the winter
Bugscope Team no. they come from eggs laid in little pockets of water, so in the winter they are frozen
- Teacher what are the dots on the eye?
Bugscope Team those are the individual facets of the eye, called ommatidia
- 12:49pm
- Bugscope Team each ommatidium is a lens, so each is kind of like an individual eye
- Teacher what kind of fly is this?
Bugscope Team we don't know what kind of fly this is, I am sorry. they are common here but I have not been able to catch an entomologist to ask
- Bugscope Team if you had compound eyes it would be difficult to buy sunglasses, but you would have very good peripheral vision
- Teacher what is at the top of the screen?
Bugscope Team that is the antenna, or antennae, one on top of the other
- Bugscope Team the antennae have lots of chemoreceptors in them, so the insect can pick up scents from the air
- Bugscope Team awesome
- Bugscope Team you can see the branchlike part of the antenna, called the arista, and the basal portion with all of the chemoreceptors in it
- Teacher what is the white dot on the antenna?
Bugscope Team the white dot is just dirt, I think
- Teacher what is the snake looking thing towards the bottom of the screen?
Bugscope Team that looks like a piece of lint or maybe even some fungus
- 12:56pm
- Teacher what is the straw thing connected to the antenna? or is that the antenna?
Bugscope Team that is the arista -- another part of the antenna
- Bugscope Team this is the sponging mouthpart of the fruit fly
- Bugscope Team fruit flies eat fungus associated with fruit
- Teacher are the hair on the fruit fly similar to the fly hair?
Bugscope Team yes quite similar; but fruit fly eyes are full of tiny bristles, between the ommatidia, that help them sense air currents and windspeed
- Bugscope Team like many other flies with sponging mouthparts, they spit up on their food and then suck up the dissolved food
- 1:01pm
- Teacher how big is the fruit fly's eye?
Bugscope Team let's do look and see if we can measure it
- Bugscope Team it looks like it is about 300 microns in diameter -- about 0.3 millimeters
- Bugscope Team see the bristles on the eye?
- Bugscope Team many of the bristles are broken off
- Teacher what colors can fruit fly eyes be?
Bugscope Team well they can be red, and white, and black that I have seen, but I bet there are other colors
- Teacher why are the bristles broken off?
Bugscope Team just because we were clumsy, or the head rolled onto a flat surface after the fruit fly died
- Teacher how small are fruit flies and how do you catch them?
- Teacher please pass controls to swift!
Bugscope Team looks like Swift is greyed out, so we cannot do it just now
- 1:06pm
- Bugscope Team the bristles are stiff and especially when an insect dies the insect dries out, making it easy for those hairs to break
- Bugscope Team also limbs easily fall off
- Teacher one last question...how far can fruit flies see?
Bugscope Team you know we are not sure, I'm sorry. Cate may be able to tell us...
- Student How long is it?
Bugscope Team how long is the micron bar?
- Teacher please pass the controls to any students 1-7
Bugscope Team student 1 has control!
- Student What is it?
- Student what is this
Bugscope Team these are scales from a mosquito, on the thorax
- Bugscope Team the brochosomes we are looking at are from a leafhopper
- Bugscope Team mosquitos have poor sight and can see you up to 30 ft away, and so i can only guess fruit flies would be much better
- 1:11pm
- Bugscope Team speaking of mosquitoes...
- Student what is a female mosquito
- Bugscope Team this is a big fly head
- Student How high does the leafhopper jump?
Bugscope Team I think they can jump two or three feet.
- Bugscope Team that is what I remember -- you often find them in bushes
- Student how many eyes are there
Bugscope Team we think a few thousand per compound eye, in that fly
- Student what is this
- Bugscope Team this is really cool
- Bugscope Team high mag on the mite
- Student are this legs
Bugscope Team yes those are the legs -- they have little kind of suction cups on the ends
- Bugscope Team the little part is what we think is the head
- Student what r those bubbles
Bugscope Team the bubble-like things at the top? those are indentations in the carapace -- in the back
- Student What is this???
- Student what is this
- Student what is the thing that misquitos drink blood
Bugscope Team this is the sheath that the fascicle is inside -- the biting part
- 1:16pm
- Student is that a cattail
- Student is that a lage
- Student What is this????
- Student what does it do
- Bugscope Team so this is the proboscis
- Student is this a spider
Bugscope Team this is a fruit fly!
- Student is that a head?
Bugscope Team this is the head of the fruit fly
- Student what is this
- Student Are they mean?
Bugscope Team they are sweet, but they can be annoying
- Student is that a i
- Student is that it's tougue
Bugscope Team yes! to the right, there
- Bugscope Team to the right is the proboscis, and to the left is the compound eye
- Student do you think this is ugly
Bugscope Team after awhile you start to like them
- Student please pass contols to sudent 2
- Student oh
- Student How annoying are they?
Bugscope Team they can be annoying to get rid of once you have them
- Student what is that?
- Bugscope Team this is a fly's claw
- Student thats cool have you magnified a cucaracha
Bugscope Team yes. they are streamlined, very smoooth
- Student what is this
- Bugscope Team all insects have six legs
- Student what part is this
- Student that's cool
- Student are those pinchers
Bugscope Team that was a claw, like a little hand
- Student Is that the teeth?
Bugscope Team insects do not have teeth, but they do have hardened mouthparts sometimes
- Bugscope Team opens and closes
- Student have you ever looked at anything else than bugs
Bugscope Team oh yeah -- lots of things. we teach people to use the microscopes to do their research, so it is not usually bugs
- 1:22pm
- Student OK!
- Bugscope Team yes we have had people want us to image fossils and computer chips
- Student how many bugs are on the slied
- Student can a horsefly like horses
Bugscope Team horseflies have slashing mouthparts that cut into the skin, so they like horses but horses do not like them
- Student you are cool
- Student do you every get grost out
Bugscope Team yes sometimes, when we get the insects and they are alive or smooshed and smelly
- Student What do they eat?
- Student is that grass?
- Student what do they look like
- Student what is there favorite furit
- Student gross
- Student do you every get grossed out
Bugscope Team once I opened a package with a large centipede in it, and it freaked me out. I dropped it on the floor, made Cate laugh.
- Bugscope Team some things can look really boring in the microscope, that's part of why we look at insects. They also don't lose their shape too much when they dry for the vacuum
- Student please pass to student 9
- Student cool
- Student yea
- Student the things that you look at are cool sj
Bugscope Team thanks -- we are lucky to be doing this -- it is really fun
- Student pass to 5
- Student What are those things?
Bugscope Team to the right is the head of a fruit fly, and to the left is a bubble in the carbon tape
- Student I have never seen enething like this
- Student do sentepeds love biteing people
Bugscope Team some of the big ones don't mind, but the smaller ones are said to be harmless to people
- Student is that a wall on the left?
- Student witch is better color or black and white
- Student what about the left?
- 1:27pm
- Student how meny anteys are thare
- Student thats hairy
- Student sj you are cool
Bugscope Team hey Thank You!
- Student what is your favorite bug you seen under the micrscope
- Student Is that hair?
- Student you guys have a cool job
- Bugscope Team i like to look at ants. sometimes they have cool mouthparts and sometimes even stingers
- Student what is that staff
- Student do worms breath throw a mouth or not
Bugscope Team I think most worms breathe through their skin
- Student my favorite is the lady bug
- Student Is it a fly??
Bugscope Team this is an earwig's mouth, up close
- Student have you ever looked at a queen ant cate
- Student do they bite?
Bugscope Team these guys will pinch you with their cercopods
- Student how close are we
Bugscope Team oops sorry probably 240x
- Student esem you tell me a lot your cool
- Student ouch
- Student who is the coolest
- Student what is this
- Student what is your favorite thing we have look at sj
- Student Is this poisonous?
- Student ok
- Student can you show us a spirdes had
Bugscope Team we don't have any spiders in the 'scope today, sorry...
- 1:32pm
- Student What is this bug???
Bugscope Team that is one of the six claws of a fly
- Student thats a lot
- Student do bugs have a cell
Bugscope Team yes they are made of cells
- Student Please pass control to 4
- Student how many cells
Bugscope Team hundreds of thousands of cells, maybe millions,
- Student you guys are so cool
- Student Do you every get tied of this?
Bugscope Team we really enjoy this -- we look forward to good sessions like today's
Bugscope Team there are so many different kinds of insects out there it's hard to get tired
- Student Is this poisonous?
- Student do bugs fight
Bugscope Team yes they do
- Student do you have a scary bug
Bugscope Team the scariest bug in the 'scope today is not an insect -- it's a centipede
- Student What is its name?
- Student what is this
Bugscope Team this is a mosquito head
- Student are bugs dangous
Bugscope Team some are dangerous, like mosquitoes and tsetse flies, also bot flies
- Bugscope Team this is how insects breathe
- Bugscope Team through these little pores called spiracles
- Student do bugs have lots of hair
- Student which one is the centipede
Bugscope Team presets no. 4, 5, 6
- Student how meny eyes are tharer
- Student What is this?
- Student what is this
- 1:37pm
- Student what does this does
- Student do you have a black wido
Bugscope Team no we had one once but it was mashed
- Student how long is the fangs?
Bugscope Team I think a few millimeters, probably less, depends on the size of the centipede
- Bugscope Team those are the biting mouthparts of the centipede
- Student do you do this for a job
Bugscope Team yes this is part of our job!
- Bugscope Team black widows are hard to come by. even if we lived in a region with them, they like to hide
- Student what are the bubbles
- Student cool is a spitball smaller than a fly
- Student What is this?
Bugscope Team those are tenent setae -- the tiny sticky hairs that help flies and other insects walk on vertical surfaces.
- Bugscope Team you can see that this preset moved after we set it up
- Bugscope Team the carbon tape that is used to help hold down the bugs looks bubbly
- Student how many eyes are there
Bugscope Team depends on the insect. some bees may have 4 to 5000 ommatidia per eye
- Student please pass to student 8
- Student what is this
Bugscope Team this is a close-up of the claw of a fly. now we are looking at the mouth of another fly
- Student is that skin?
Bugscope Team insects do not really have skin -- they have a flexible and not-so-flexible shell called an 'exoskeleton.'
- Student i think you should try to invent colors
Bugscope Team yeah some people add color to this kind of image
- Student cool sj
- Student what is this
- 1:42pm
- Student Is this a cool bug?
- Guest what cand of skalten dose this bug have?
Bugscope Team it's on the outside!
- Student do you think your job is cool
Bugscope Team this part I really like. there are tough parts too, but we are lucky to be able to do this.
- Student what is that
Bugscope Team this, now, is a mite
- Bugscope Team bugs are cool in different ways unless they are super streamlined like roaches
- Guest what kind of blood do they have
Bugscope Team the blood of an insect is called hemolymph, and it is clear, although when you smash one it may look yellowy.
- Student there is two
Bugscope Team yes! you found the other one!
- Student mites
- Student can you see the cells from the microscope
Bugscope Team we have seen blood cells that are fixed for imaging in the sem
- Student what does a mite do sj
Bugscope Team we are not sure what the mite does. it manages to feed there on the surface of the cuticle of the insect, but we don't know what it eats
- Student Why isn't it in color?
Bugscope Team we are using electrons instead of light, to do this. and the images come to us a shades of dark and light, as levels of signal
- Student please pass to student 7
- Student Do you like these bugs?
Bugscope Team this was a good set today
- Student what is the bug can swim
Bugscope Team whirligig beetles and waterboatmen are two of them
- Student what is this
- 1:47pm
- Guest how long did you have to study for this
Bugscope Team Cate got a degree in physics, and I got a degree in English and biology. Then we had to learn to run the 'scopes. But it is fun, not that hard.
- Student what is this?????
Bugscope Team we are near one of the mites, so we are on the exoskeleton of the fly or the earwig
- Student o.k sj
- Student cool
- Student time is getting short - could we pass to #5?
- Student that was short
Bugscope Team sorry...
- Guest it sounds like fun
- Student How did you catch these bugs?
Bugscope Team these, many of them, were caught using a jar, by hand, and then freezing, and then thawing in air for a few days
- Student Ok
- Guest would you have bugs if we did not get eny
Bugscope Team yes we have a a small supply
- Student can bugs shape shift
Bugscope Team they can bend quite a bit, some of them, but they don't shape shift quickly. You know going from a caterpillar to a butterfly is quite a trick
- Student what r thse sj
Bugscope Team those are salt crystals from a Wendy's restaurant
- 1:52pm
- Student do you show the bugs we sent
Bugscope Team I put some of our bugs in today because -- I am sorry -- I didn't know where yours were. Usually I am spoiled and Cate does that part.
- Guest are you shoing the bugs we gave you sj
- Student please pass to controls to our last student # 6
- Student What is this sj?
Bugscope Team this is one of the scales on the thorax of a mosquito.
- Student by sj u r cool
- Student is butterfly 5 times bigger than a catapiler
Bugscope Team they can be much bigger but sometimes there are some big caterpillars as well.
- Guest to bad we had some cool bugs
- Student you founed some great bugs for us
- Student Bye sj Thank you! Goodbye!!! Your cool!
- Bugscope Team scales are good to have if you are a butterfly or moth or mosquito or silverfish and want to escape from a spider's web. you just leave the scales stuck to the web and slip out. if you are also a little lucky
- Guest but this are cool to
- Student you are cool esem
- Student good bye!
- Student bye
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Student by sj esnm and scot
- Student thank u sj u r cool
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Student thank u for ever thing
- Bugscope Team Thank You for working with us today!
- 1:57pm
- Student OUr carpool time is approaching quickly. Thank you for all of your great information today! our Intermediate division has enjoyed this session!
- Bugscope Team thank you for using bugscope today!
- Bugscope Team hope you all had fun
- Bugscope Team Cate can you shut down? I lost control...
- Bugscope Team you can go to your member page to see images and chat from today
- Bugscope Team Hello Schlanger. I'm sorry we are closing down...
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2010-071/
