Connected on 2011-04-07 09:45:00 from Cook, Illinois, United States
- 8:54am
- Bugscope Team sample is being coated...
- 9:04am
- Bugscope Team sample is now in 'scope, being pumped down
- Bugscope Team 1.7...
- Bugscope Team 1.5
- 9:09am
- Bugscope Team 1.4
- Bugscope Team almost there
- Bugscope Team 1.3
- Bugscope Team good morning Ms Mak!
- Teacher Good morning!
- Teacher Thank you for everything!
- Teacher I just wanted to make sure that everything was set up before I teach a lesson for a different grade level.
- Teacher We will be back at 9:45! They are very excited!
- Bugscope Team Cool!
- Bugscope Team we'll be working on the presets and should be ready at 9:45
- 9:15am
- 9:20am
- 9:27am
- 9:32am
- 9:39am
- 9:47am
- Bugscope Team we are ready to roll!
- Teacher Great! My 3rd graders are filtering in now.
- Teacher There will be 3rd graders for an hour, then we will switch to 2nd grade.
- Bugscope Team sounds great!
- Teacher What do we have in front of us?
- Bugscope Team this is an ant, with a second ant next to it
- Bugscope Team its on its back, as usual
- Bugscope Team almost all ants you see are female
- Bugscope Team if you see an ant with wings it is a male, but the female ants do almost all of the work
- Bugscope Team good morning, Linda!
- Bugscope Team this is the top of the thorax, and the head is above that
- Teacher Are those little hairs called sensilla?
Bugscope Team we call them setae (see-tee)
- Bugscope Team singular of setae is seta
- 9:52am
- Bugscope Team now you can see the mandibles
- Teacher what is the purpose of them?
Bugscope Team they allow the ant, or whatever insect they are attached to, to sense (sense of touch, taste/smell, temperature, wind speed) what is going on around it in its environment.
- Bugscope Team mandible is another word for jaw
- Bugscope Team the mandibles on insects open like a gate, whereas those on people open up and down
- Bugscope Team the antennae are used to sense the pheromones that the other ants put out. Some ants will lay a trail for the other ants to follow, for instance
- Teacher My students want to know if the antenna is used for smell?
Bugscope Team the antenna are covered with chemosensory setae, so they are indeed used for smell
- Bugscope Team the information ants get from the pheromones (like perfume, or scents in the air or on some substance) override the information an ant gets from seeing things
- Teacher What are the layers on the abdomen?
Bugscope Team many people who study ants call the abdomen a 'gaster,' and it has little flexible panels on it so it can expand and shrink and also bend
- 9:57am
- Bugscope Team be sure and select from the other presets on the left screen when you are ready to look at something else
- Bugscope Team the spider you sent us looks very nice as well
- Bugscope Team some ants have stingers, and some spray formic acid from the tip of the abdomen to discourage pests
- Bugscope Team this is the tip of one of the centipede's feet
- Bugscope Team it's like a single claw
- Teacher What do they use the toes for?
Bugscope Team by toe, scot meant claw, and the claws are used for grabbing onto things or to help them walk along things
- Teacher I'm hearing lots of "ewwwww"s right now. :)
- Bugscope Team centipedes have two feet per segment, one on each side
- Bugscope Team millipedes have four feet per body segment, two on each side
- 10:02am
- Bugscope Team here is a big eeeewwww from me
- Bugscope Team centipedes bite their prey and inject venom into it, then eat it
- Bugscope Team this is the mouth
- Bugscope Team stoneflies spend part of the time in the water
- Bugscope Team and they are a good indicator of water quality in a stream
- Teacher Isabel wants to know why it looks like they have several mandibles
Bugscope Team some of what you see are palps, which are used to taste/move around the food it eats. It might have maybe 2 pairs of mandibles though
- 10:07am
- Teacher Maciej wants to know what insect is carrying the pollen?
Bugscope Team this part of the stonefly's body is also where its gills are, and that area has lots of infoldings that spikey things like pollen can stick to
- Bugscope Team not all pollen is spikey, however, and today there is also stargazer lily pollen on the sample stub that is not at all spikey
- Bugscope Team stonefly larva may live for 2 or 3 years and undergo as many as 25 molts before they become adults
- Bugscope Team this is pretty cool, here
- Bugscope Team we think this is a female spider because the pedipalps are small; those of a male spider are usually larger
- 10:12am
- Teacher That's okay!
- Teacher Isabel wants to know why it looks like they have hair in their mandibles?
Bugscope Team spiders usually do not see very well, but they are almost all quite sensitive to vibration, which means that they can sense when something is near or even touching them
- Teacher Clay wants to know what kind of spider this is.
Bugscope Team we aren't very good at identifying spiders, sorry.
Bugscope Team it looks similar to a woodlouse spider- spiders that prey on woodlice (rolypolys)
- Bugscope Team some of the hairs are vibration-sensing, and sometimes spiders also have hairs that they release to irritate the nasal tissues, for example, of a dog that might be bothering them
- Teacher Janine wants to know if spiders have a head, thorax, and abdomen?
Bugscope Team no, their head is attached to their thorax, which in total is called a cephalothorax, but they do have an abdomen
- Teacher Clay wants to know if these things help them digest their food?
Bugscope Team spiders inject venom into their prey that dissolves the inner organs of the prey, which they then suck up like a milkshake -- so they have a liquid diet
- Teacher Matt wants to know about how many "hairs" are there?
Bugscope Team here we see hundreds, but I'm sure in total there are waaaay more than that- too many to count
- Bugscope Team the cephalothorax is often hard, whereas the abdomen is soft and thus expandable
- Teacher Maciej wants to know what that hole is.
- 10:17am
- Teacher Kamila wants to know how many insects there are in the world?
Bugscope Team there are trillions of insects and probably a few million species
- Bugscope Team this is the one of the pores with which the spider injects poison
- Teacher Everybody wants to know what that oval shape is to the right.
Bugscope Team that looks like a scrape to the right
- Bugscope Team the fang has scars on it
- Bugscope Team the thing on the right that was stuck to the hair was probably some kind of debris; we are not sure
- Bugscope Team it might fight with other spiders or insects that are trying to eat it
- Teacher Josh wants to know how it gets scars? Do the insects fight?
Bugscope Team ha Cate beat me to it!
- Teacher What is "that thing"?
- Bugscope Team the tiny stuff we see there is likely mold
- Teacher :) - the thing in the middle of the screen
- Bugscope Team mold, or fungus, has long stringy portions called 'hyphae,' and that may be fungal hyphae, which will eventually cover the spider after it dies and make it rot
- 10:22am
- Teacher Clay wants to know if the antenna are split into 2 parts?
Bugscope Team the antennae do have an "elbow" in them so that they can move them around to what direction they want them to go
- Teacher Josh wants to know if wasps have compound eyes.
Bugscope Team yes they do! and they also have simple eyes called 'ocelli' on the top of the head
- Bugscope Team the individual facets of the compound eye are called 'ommatidia,' and each functions like a lens
- Bugscope Team it is cool how the compound eye shapes itself around the head
- Teacher Clay wants to know how many facets would be on a compound eye?
- Teacher They have 2 sets of eyes?
Bugscope Team yes they have 2 compound eyes, which allow them to see almost 360 degrees around them, and they also have a set of eyes we can't see right now at the back of the head, which are called ocelli. Ocelli are a set of 3 simple eyes that triangulate with the sun so it won't fly upside down
- Teacher Would we be able to see the simple eye?
Bugscope Team we might, to the right a bit
- Bugscope Team well I was thinking that was a single ocellus, but I think it is debris and the ocelli are further back, on the top of the head
- Bugscope Team they do look like little white domes
- 10:28am
- Teacher Matt wants to know what the pointy things are on the top right.
Bugscope Team those are some of the legs to the right
- Teacher What is the circular part in the center?
- Teacher Isabel wants to know why it looks like something is coming out of their eyes?
Bugscope Team those aren't the eyes. Those are the antennae. One of the compound eyes is just above the antenna that you see. It's the bumpy part
- Teacher Clay wants to know how many legs a millipede has
Bugscope Team they can get large in the Tropics and have perhaps 750 legs, but here only a hundred, maybe
- Teacher Clay wants to know how long a millipede is?
Bugscope Team the length depends on how big they are. There are some the size of small snakes! This one is about 10mm long maybe?
- Teacher Kamila wants to know how many types of millipeds there are.
Bugscope Team there are said to be 10,000 species of millipede
- 10:33am
- Teacher Isabel wants to know how long a millipede lives.
Bugscope Team they live around 5-7 years
- Teacher Kamila wants to know how fast they can walk.
Bugscope Team many of this type of millipede walk very slowly and depend on their ability to curl up to protect themselves from predators
- Teacher Maciej wants to know if millipedes are venomous.
Bugscope Team there are venomous millipedes, but they are of the tropical variety
- Teacher Matt wants to know what a beetle eats.
Bugscope Team that depends on the beetle. They can pretty much eat anything
- Teacher Clay wants to know what the different plates are
Bugscope Team those are different portions of the exoskeleton, which is an armored shell that most insects have
- Teacher Kamila wants to know what type of beetle it is.
Bugscope Team this is a click beetle. Their defense is to make a clicking sound
- Bugscope Team insects and many similar arthropods have exoskeletons and no bones on the inside like we do -- they have a shell like a shrimp, for example
- Teacher Can humans hear the clicking sound?
Bugscope Team yes and you can feel it -- I leaned on one in a chair one time, and it clicked violently to get me to let it up
- Teacher :)
- Bugscope Team you can see that the eyes on this one are in the very front
- 10:38am
- Bugscope Team sometimes the head -- on the side that we cannot see -- will have large eyespots on it to scare or startle potential predators
- Teacher Kamila wants to know if it's just a male or female thing? Or do all click?
Bugscope Team I believe they all click. Clicking, if they are not pinned under you, can also make them flip their bodies in the air to escape a predator
- Teacher Josh wants to know why there are "holes" in the antenna.
Bugscope Team those are pores for the setae (insect hairs). Each pore should have a seta sticking through
- Teacher Clay wants to know why there looks like there is a ledge.
Bugscope Team it has a kind of battering ram head, doesn't it? that may be how these insects compete for mates
- Teacher Third graders want to give a big thank you!
Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team thanks for using bugscope with us this morning 3rd graders!
- Teacher They are headed out right now, my 2nd graders will be filtering in in a few minutes.
Bugscope Team cool!
- 10:50am
- Teacher 2nd Grade is ready!
- Teacher Nicholas wants to know if the poison is deadly.
Bugscope Team most spiders' poison is not deadly to people, and this spider is probably not dangerous
- Teacher Rachel wants to know what those hairs are.
Bugscope Team those are called setae (pronounced see-tee), and they allow the arthropod to feel what is going on around it in its environment. They dont have sensitive skin like us so they rely on their hairs
- Bugscope Team the venom of recluse spiders, however, can cause a large sore where it eats away at your skin and tissue
- Bugscope Team spiders often rely more than anything else on their ability to sense vibration using those setae
- Teacher Josh wants to know if this spider is rare.
Bugscope Team to us it is a rare spider that looks very good in the microscope, but actually we don't often know what kind of spider we have, as today
- 10:55am
- Bugscope Team it certainly has large fangs
- Guest If you don't mind one of my students has a question. They would like to know what the long thing on teh left side of the screen is.
Bugscope Team those are its legs
Bugscope Team yes now you can see a little better
- Bugscope Team all of the legs are attached to the cephalothorax -- the combined head and trunk
- Guest Daulton would like to know what holds the legs on
Bugscope Team probably a bone and socket joint like we have. Some spiders can even jettison their legs out if it will help them get away from their enemies
- Bugscope Team the tip of the abdomen is where the spinnerettes are
- Bugscope Team spiders can produce different kinds of web, some of which are not sticky
- Bugscope Team if a spider gets stuck in its own web it is said to be able to eat its way out
- Teacher Laine wants to know what the 4 circles are.
Bugscope Team those are the spinnerettes -- the nozzles that produce the web
- Teacher Why wouldn't some webs be sticky?
Bugscope Team it's nice to have nonsticky web to walk on when you go after the prey
- 11:01am
- Teacher Nathan wants to know what the big circle is.
Bugscope Team I'm not sure what we are looking at exactly
- Guest I have several students who would like to know what we are looking at now.
Bugscope Team this is the spider's abdomen, including the spinnerettes, at the top; it is a little shriveled. the abdomen is soft and flexible whereas the cephalothorax is thicker and hardened
- Teacher Back to the "jettison their legs out"--could you explain that some more?
Bugscope Team spiders have the ability to 'autotomize' their legs, for example if they sense venom entering them or they are caught and could escape just by letting the leg fall off. it is a good thing they have so many legs
- Teacher Rachel wants to know how spiders jump? Do they joints to bend their legs?
Bugscope Team yes they have multiple joints in their legs that they can bend to help them jump. They also have muscles in their legs
- Bugscope Team this is the tip of one of the many tiny legs of the centipede; you can see a body segment below it
- Teacher Lucy wants to know what that texture is on its toe?
Bugscope Team what I called a 'toe' is really a claw, and it is hardened -- it is think kind of like a fingernail
- 11:06am
- Teacher Josh wants to know if centipede poison can be lethal to humans.
Bugscope Team I think in rare cases it can be toxic, but mostly from the larger Tropical centipedes
Bugscope Team The effect on humans however varies greatly. Very small species of centipedes are unable to penetrate human skin and inject any venom, so could be considered harmless. Some species can deliver a dose of venom, the result being about the same as the result of a bee sting. Some larger species can deliver still more venom. The good news is that centipede stings in general are not harmful to humans as far as the amount of venom involved is concerned, but the sting from a large centipede can be extremely painful in some instances, painful enough to send someone to a hospital for treatment, but such a sting is rarely life threatening.
- Guest Daulton wants to know what the long things on top are.
Bugscope Team those are the antennae
- Teacher Laine wants to know if the claws are sharp.
Bugscope Team they are sharp to us, but they are small and we wouldn't very likely feel them
- Teacher Jack wants to know how many legs there are.
Bugscope Team on average, centipedes have 30-100 legs
- Teacher Andy wants to know why centipedes don't have the little hairs on the tips of its legs.
Bugscope Team it may be that in the environment in which the centipede lives it would not benefit from having sensory feedback from the tips of its legs
- Teacher Samantha wants to know if these are the mandibles?
Bugscope Team yes they are!
- Guest Several students want to know what the little things are?
Bugscope Team you mean the tiny feautures on the surface of the exoskeleton?
- Teacher What do centipedes eat?
Bugscope Team often they eat insects and other arthropods, and large ones can eat things like mice; they usually kill their prey with venom and then chew it up, from what I have read
- Guest there were small things laying around the centipede the students wondered if they were seeds
Bugscope Team Oh yeah -- those are pollen grains from the stargazer lily.
- 11:12am
- Bugscope Team here is the wasp's compound eye; it has probably 5000 individual ommatida on each side
- Guest thank you
Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Teacher Andy wants to know how many lens there are in the compound eye.
Bugscope Team this one has thousands. Too many to count!
- Teacher Susie wants to know what's the most common shape for the lens?
Bugscope Team the most common shape are hexagons. They allow for the best curvature of the eye. When there aren't too many ommatidia, like with the ant, they tend to be round
- Teacher Patrick wants to know if the compound eye lets them see all the way around them.
Bugscope Team yes the wasp has very good peripheral vision
- Teacher Do wasps have venom when they sting people? - Rachel
Bugscope Team yes they do. And they can sting multiple times, but they are small amounts of venom each time. A bee will use all its venom in one sting because that is often all they have
- Teacher Laine wants to know what the holes are to the right of the compound eye.
Bugscope Team i've never really known what those holes are for. Maybe scot can help with that
- Guest Daulton would like to know what the holes beside the eyes are
Bugscope Team we see those often, but we are not sure what their purpose is; it may be to help equalize the pressure inside and outside of the head
- 11:17am
- Teacher Samantha wants to know if those folded in parts are the mandibles?
Bugscope Team yes they are! they open from side to side like a gate
- Teacher Susie wants to know why there are hairs on the folded parts?
Bugscope Team many of the tiny hairs we see are sensory -- they sense touch, or they help smell. or they sense hot/cold
- Teacher Nicholas wants to know what's in their mouths?
Bugscope Team they have something that is like a tongue and they also have palps, which are used to taste or move around food
- Teacher Josh wants to know what wasps eat.
Bugscope Team they often eat garbage. That is why you often see them around picnic tables
- Teacher Laine wants to know where the stinger is.
Bugscope Team that is found at the tip of the abdomen, but I don't think it's visible today
- Teacher Nathan wants to know what the antenna is for.
Bugscope Team antennae are very important to insects and arthropods -- they often have most of the smell receptors on them and thus let the insect follow trails of various smells -- of food, or of other insects, or potential mates
- Bugscope Team many insects respond almost automatically to particular scents; ants depend on scent trails to tell them where to go and not to go
- Teacher Patrick wants to know if all pollen looks like this.
Bugscope Team no, this is very rare. There is a preset of a different kind of pollen on here. Most pollen look like spheres with spikes on them
- 11:22am
- Teacher Susie wants to know why the pollen looks like its coated in flour?
Bugscope Team it may have tiny bits of debris on it; this is a stonefly larva that spends a lot of time in the water
- Teacher Andy wants to know why pollen might have spikes?
Bugscope Team that helps them get transported in hair like these setae, or in fur or on clothing
- Guest My class would like to know what the hook things are?
Bugscope Team those are claws
- Bugscope Team all insects have six legs, and many have a set of claws on each leg
- Teacher Laine wants to know how you identify the bug.
Bugscope Team after awhile you start to recognize features that species have in common with other species in the same family. and we see specific ;) things like halteres or hamuli that let us know if an insect might be a fly or a wasp, for example. we are not as good at this as the entomologists, but we are always learning
- 11:28am
- Guest Quandair would like to know what the bumpy thing in the middle toward the top is?
Bugscope Team I am sorry -- it has moved and I am not sure
- Guest that is ok
- Teacher What is that?
Bugscope Team I think these are cerci -- they stick out past the abdomen and let the insect know when something is touching it
- Teacher Laine wants to know why they are puffy.
Bugscope Team being puffy helps them collect more light and also likely help focus the image they collect
- Teacher Rachel wants to know what the compound eyes are made out of.
Bugscope Team they are made out of the same stuff the rest of the exoskeleton is made of- chitin
- Teacher Lucy wants to know why there are bubbles on the eye.
Bugscope Team we don't know where this fly has been, but it flew through something that gummed up its eyes
- 11:33am
- Bugscope Team this is the mouth, with sponging mouthparts, and you could see the antennae above
- Guest My class would like to know what this is
- Bugscope Team you can see the antennae now
- Bugscope Team this is a female housefly
- Teacher Nathan wants to know what those rocky things are.
- Bugscope Team the antennae have a thick pad portion and also an 'aristate' -- branchlike -- portion
- Bugscope Team now we see both portions of one antenna
- Teacher Jack wants to know what color the compound eyes are.
Bugscope Team I think these appeared to be black before we coated them with gold-palladium to make them conductive
- Teacher Nathan wants to know what the claw does.
Bugscope Team they grab onto things. They are like our hands. They may also help steady them on certain surfaces
- Teacher Andy wants to know what's in between the claw parts.
Bugscope Team that looks like what is called an 'arolium,' and it helps the ant keep a grip on a small crevice
- 11:38am
- Bugscope Team I am not sure about ants having an arolium, which we see in insects like grasshoppers. in grasshoppers the arolium can be inflated to help it hold onto a crevice, and deflated to let it go
- Teacher Susie wants to know why the legs are scrunched up.
Bugscope Team when they die, they dry out. When that happens the tendons get tight and cause the legs to fold in
- Bugscope Team this is the abdomen, which people who study ants will often call a 'gaster.'
- Bugscope Team oops not just now
- Bugscope Team this is carbon tape that Cate uses to stick the insects down to the stub
- Bugscope Team she also uses silver paint. you can see the bubbles in the tape
- Bugscope Team the spider is to the left and the wasp head is to the right
- Teacher Susie wants to know what those black dots are
Bugscope Team the black dots are bubbles in the surface of the carbon doublestick tape Cate uses when she prepares the samples
- Bugscope Team the spider has very large fangs
- Teacher Thank you very much! It's time for us to leave.
- Bugscope Team Thank You! This is fun for us.
- Teacher Thanks for everything!!! You all have been wonderful!
- Bugscope Team thank you for using bugscope with us today
- 11:43am
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-014
- Guest Thank you for letting us sit in! Maybe we can visit again soon!
Bugscope Team thank you -- you are very good guests!
- Bugscope Team the url I put below is the member page for your session -- you can visit it anytime to see the transcript and images from this session
- Bugscope Team bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-014
- Bugscope Team another way of putting it...
- Bugscope Team Thank You!!
- Bugscope Team We are shutting down soon.
- Bugscope Team Good Bye!
- Teacher Thanks!
- Bugscope Team Thank You Again!
