Connected on 2011-06-02 12:15:00 from Cook, Illinois, United States
- 11:52am
- Bugscope Team hello Hanc!
- Bugscope Team We are getting ready to make presets for today's session
- Bugscope Team as soon as the 'scope reaches vacuum
- 11:57am
- Guest we are checking out the display on our computer for our session in two weeks
- Bugscope Team cool!
- Bugscope Team Hello MAK!
- Bugscope Team we're working on the presets
- Teacher Hi!
- Teacher I was planning on sending our bugs that we collected, but I think I waited too long after they had died...
- Teacher The kids should be coming in about 15 minutes!
- Bugscope Team totally cool
- 12:02pm
- Bugscope Team Cate is driving and I am typing the names when she finds nice places on the sample stub.
- 12:07pm
- 12:12pm
- 12:19pm
- Bugscope Team we are ready to roll!
- Teacher We are too!
- Bugscope Team alright you are the Supreme Rulers!
- Bugscope Team this is a super tiny ant that I caught in my kitchen
- 12:24pm
- Teacher Elizabeth wants to know what's in the mouth
Bugscope Team those are the palps -- the four little 'feelers' that help the ant taste and manipulate its food
- Bugscope Team ants often look like they have a whole 'nother insect in their mouth
- Teacher Angela wants to know what's the big thing in the center
Bugscope Team the hinged jaws are to the upper middle of the picture. it has a couple sets of palps that are like feelers as well
- Bugscope Team you can see the mandibles, curved around the head -- they open from the sides
- Bugscope Team it also has long legs that are kind of tucked under its head
- Bugscope Team the jaws/mandibles are forked at the end, as you can see on the one on the left
- Bugscope Team i should say she. Almost all ants, bees, and wasps you see are females. They do most of the work in the colonies
Bugscope Team that's right -- there are few males, and they don't do much, but they can fly
- Teacher :)
- Teacher Elizabeth wants to know why the boys don't do the work.
Bugscope Team I think it's pretty much normal, isn't it?
- Bugscope Team in the ant world, and with some other kinds of insects, the males do not do much except breed
- Bugscope Team the bubbly background is carbon tape the insects are sitting on
- Bugscope Team with mosquitoes, the females are the ones that bite; the males only drink nectar, like from flowers
- Teacher Ashley wants to know why the abdomen has layers.
Bugscope Team that is so it can flex it. Like how we have joints in our legs and arms. They have all their joints on the outside because of the exoskeleton
- 12:29pm
- Bugscope Team female mosquitoes need to have the extra protein from their blood meal in order to successfully lay their eggs
- Teacher Elizabeth wants to know what we're looking at.
Bugscope Team that is one of the six claws of the ant
- Bugscope Team it may be surprising to see that so many insects have tiny claws
- Bugscope Team insects all have six legs (as adults); a thorax, which the legs are attached to; a head; and an abdomen
- Bugscope Team ant people call the ant abdomen a 'gaster'
- Bugscope Team this is a leafhopper
- Bugscope Team it has a bullet-shaped head that resembles the head of the backswimmer
- Teacher What's that thing sticking out where his eye would be?
Bugscope Team those are the antennae. The eyes here are compound eyes and are the bumpy areas on the sides of the head
- 12:34pm
- Bugscope Team now you can see the compound eye very clearly
- Bugscope Team the antenna is broken
- Bugscope Team now we are looking at the ommatidia -- the individual facets of the compound eye
- Teacher What different shapes are in compound eyes?
Bugscope Team most are hexagonal to fit the curvature of the eye best. But there is some other material sticking to the eye and those are the brochosomes which are nanoparticles
- Bugscope Team see the tiny stuff that looks like sand, between the ommatidia?
- Bugscope Team leafhoppers are different from other insects in producing the nanoparticles called brochosomes that Cate mentioned
- Bugscope Team leafhoppers are true bugs
- 12:39pm
- Teacher Is it related to a grasshopper?
Bugscope Team they are not from the same family as grasshoppers; they only share part of the name
- Guest what is the function of the brochosomes?
Bugscope Team it is thought the leafhoppers use them to coat their eggs so they can keep them moist
- Teacher Is this a broken antenna?
Bugscope Team yes it looks broken
- Bugscope Team the leafhopper family is Cicadellidae; one of the grasshopper families is called Acrididae
- Teacher Are those wings under his legs?
Bugscope Team yes they are!
- Bugscope Team the wings are folded
- Teacher Are the wings thick or thin?
Bugscope Team they are thicker than many other types of wings
- 12:44pm
- Teacher What is a butterfly wing scale?
Bugscope Team there are scales all over a butterfly or moth. These are just a few from a small portion of the wing of a butterfly
- Teacher How high can they fly with their wings?
Bugscope Team I don't think they fly very well -- just in little bursts, to get away from predators, for example
Bugscope Team they can use the wind, especially from storms, to help transport them long distances
- Bugscope Team butterflies can shed a few scales and never notice
- Bugscope Team wing scales, and scales in general, serve in part to help insects get out of webs they might've fallen or flown into
- Teacher Are each of the scales different colors?
Bugscope Team groups of the scales are different. They will either have different types of pigment granules, or the structure will look slightly different so that light refracts off them differently
- Bugscope Team the scales are what feel like fine powder to us when we touch a butterfly or a moth's wings
- Bugscope Team so yes as Cate says, scales are responsible for the color we see on some wings; and some of those colors come from pigments. some of the color comes from the width and shape of the latticework we are seeing now
- 12:50pm
- Teacher What are these lines and are they rounded or flat?
Bugscope Team those are the ribs of the scale, and they are three-dimensional, like tiny ladders
- Bugscope Team so in a way they are rounded
- Teacher What are we looking at?
Bugscope Team this is the mouthpart of a mosquito responsible for cutting into our skin so that it can drink
- Bugscope Team it acts like a steak knife and there are 3 others, I believe, that help this one
- Bugscope Team there may be four of these tiny stylets, as Cate says
- Bugscope Team they slide side by side when they cut into your skin
- Teacher What are these bumps?
Bugscope Team those are the sharp parts. They may not look like it because we are magnified so much, though. They are the part that helps cut
- 12:55pm
- Bugscope Team the mouthparts we are looking at now are usually concealed inside a sheath -- the proboscis
- Teacher John says it looks like a slide. When it bites us, what does it do with the blood?
Bugscope Team another part of the fascicle that we do not see right now is a siphon tube that delivers saliva and brings back blood
Bugscope Team she uses the blood as an energy source so she can have enough energy to lay eggs
- Teacher Is this his compound eye?
Bugscope Team yes right in the middle is a compound eye!
- Bugscope Team the male ants, like this one, do not live very long; they may even be refused entrance to the nest by the other ants
- Teacher Why are there tiny hairs on his eye?
Bugscope Team in other insects, like fruitflies, we know that the tiny hairs help them gauge windspeed and wind direction. so maybe those serve the same purpose
- Teacher Why do the male ants fly?
Bugscope Team they fly so they can breed with queen ants in the air, far from the nest
- Bugscope Team the queen ant, when she gets back to the nest, will lose her wings and never fly again
- 1:01pm
- Teacher How come the male ants can't go into the nests
Bugscope Team I am not sure, but it may be that they do not serve a useful purpose anymore. They may have chemicals on them that smell foreign to the guard ants, as well.
- Teacher How big is the queen ant compared to the male flying ant?
Bugscope Team i'm not sure how much bigger, but she is bigger
- Teacher Are there any other female flying ants besides the queen?
Bugscope Team it's my understanding the only ones with wings are queens and the males
- Teacher What are we looking at?
Bugscope Team these are gills on a caddisfly larva
Bugscope Team they are aquatic as larvae, and are also predatory, catching other insects
- 1:06pm
- Teacher is this like seaweed to catch things?
Bugscope Team they are responsible for breathing underwater.
- Teacher Ashley wants to know if their life is like a frog, living on both land and water?
Bugscope Team kind of. As a larva they live in the water, but as an adult, they are more like a flying predatory insect that is not aquatic at all
- Teacher Is this a claw?
- Teacher What is this that we are looking at?
Bugscope Team the tail end has hooks that make it so it won't be carried away in a stream. It roots itself in place
- 1:12pm
- Teacher What does it eat?
Bugscope Team they will eat other small insects are algae
- Bugscope Team this is an ambush bug. It sits on flowers and waits for an insect to go by so it can grab one and drink bug juices
- Teacher We'd love to learn more, but the bell just rang. Thank you so much for your time. We've learned a lot today.
- Bugscope Team thanks fro using bugscope today. We hope you all had a good time!
- Bugscope Team for*
- Bugscope Team you can go to your member page https://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-016 at anytime to view chat and images from today
- Bugscope Team and here is the inside of the chamber, where you can see all the insects are sitting
