Connected on 2011-10-03 10:00:00 from Taylor, Wisconsin, United States
- 9:08am
- Bugscope Team good morning!
- Bugscope Team I am finishing coating the sample & will have it in the 'scope soon
- 9:20am
- Bugscope Team vacuum is a little slow...
- Bugscope Team sometimes samples are a bit juicy and take a little while to pump down
- Bugscope Team once the vacuum is low enough we can turn on the electron beam and start looking for cool places on the sample to make into presets
- Bugscope Team 1.6 x 10-4...
- Bugscope Team going for 1.3 x 10-4 Torr
- Bugscope Team 1.5...
- Bugscope Team still 1.5
- Bugscope Team 1.4
- Bugscope Team yay
- 9:26am
- Bugscope Team almost there..
- Bugscope Team cricket may be a little juicy, and the spiders
- Bugscope Team as soon as the vac is okay I will turn on the electron beam and the whole central screen will light up
- Bugscope Team true bug
- 9:32am
- 9:37am
- Teacher Good Morning
- Teacher This is Mrs. Beyer from Holy Rosary.
- Bugscope Team Hello!
- Bugscope Team We will be ready in 10-15 minutes
- 9:42am
- Bugscope Team if that sounds good to you
- Teacher The kids aren't here yet we will be ready at 10:00
- Bugscope Team great!
- Guest hello
- Bugscope Team hello MYP!
- Guest what is that?
- Bugscope Team parasitic wasp
- Guest cool
- 9:47am
- 9:52am
- 9:58am
- Bugscope Team we are ready to roll!
- Bugscope Team this is the head of the Monarch butterfly
- Teacher we are all ready
Bugscope Team you have control of the microscope
- Bugscope Team you can choose from any of the presets on the lefthand screen
- 10:03am
- Bugscope Team here we are looking at the place where the proboscis is attached to the face of the Monarch
- Bugscope Team on the lower right we see the tube that is coiled up right now -- the proboscis
- Bugscope Team when the Monarch feeds -- on milkweed -- it can extend the proboscis into flowers
- Bugscope Team if the proboscis gets gummed up with nectar, the butterfly can clean it by separating it into two halves and wiping it down with its forearms
- Bugscope Team you can see the compound eyes on either side of the head\
- Teacher thats cool can we see more of the proboscis
- Bugscope Team compound eyes in an insect like the Monarch may have as many as 17,000 individual facets, called ommatidia
- Bugscope Team you can use click to center -- click on the screen -- to get a feature to move to the center
- 10:08am
- Bugscope Team Monarchs and other butterflies, as well as moths, are hard to image using the scanning electron microscope because they charge up with electrons from the electron beam we are using to collect images
- Bugscope Team all of the tiny setae and scales are often not grounded very well -- they are loose\
- Bugscope Team now you can see one of the compound eyes
- Teacher awesome and lets go look at a mosquito
- Bugscope Team the butterfly can see almost 360 degrees around it without moving its head
- Bugscope Team this is one of the mosquitoes
- Bugscope Team you can see its head
- Bugscope Team which is kind of flattened
- 10:14am
- Bugscope Team the mosquito is dry, and its eyes are not round and bulbous anymore
- Bugscope Team you can tell males from females because male mosquitoes have very frilly, fancy antennae
- Teacher we think its a female are we right
- Bugscope Team yes it is!
- Bugscope Team female antennae are very simple-looking compared to those of a male
- Bugscope Team see all of the tiny scales?
- Bugscope Team they're like feathers, in a way
- Bugscope Team mosquitoes, moths, butterflies, and silverfish have scales; very few other insects may have them
- Bugscope Team scales are what make a butterfly's wing feel silky
- Teacher can you tell us what the halters do
Bugscope Team halteres are found in flies, and flies are in the Diptera, which means "two wings"
- Bugscope Team di- means two, and -ptera means wing
- 10:19am
- Bugscope Team the halteres are tiny modified hindwings that look like little punching bags, like a boxer's punching bag, on a stalk
- Bugscope Team the halteres beat when the wings beat, but their motion is opposite that of the wings
- Bugscope Team the halteres balance the movement of the fly in the air by beating opposite the way the wings beat
- Bugscope Team you may be able to see halteres on the small fly
- Bugscope Team insects like bees and wasps have four wings and thus do not have halteres
- Teacher how many types of mosquitoes are there
Bugscope Team there are thousands of species; there is even a species in which the female does not drink blood. but they are not found in the U.S>
- Bugscope Team the females may live on nectar until they are fertilized; then they are ravenous for blood because they need the protein and iron so they can successfully lay their eggs
- Teacher how long do fly live
Bugscope Team there are so many flies, but generally four to six weeks
- 10:24am
- Bugscope Team the ommatidia appear to form almost perfect hexagons
- Bugscope Team spiders do not have compound eyes, and many spiders cannot see very well\
- Teacher how many parts of the fly eye are there
- Bugscope Team maybe 3 to 5000 ommatidia; it depends on the fly]\
- Bugscope Team many flying insects also have simple eyes called ocelli on the back or top of the head
- Bugscope Team the ocelli do not see as well as mostly registering dark and light, and they help keep the wasp, in this case, oriented with respect to the sun
- Bugscope Team this is a tiny parasitic wasp\
- Bugscope Team oohh
- Bugscope Team this is the super tiny beetle you sent
- Bugscope Team it was so small I was afraid to squeeze it when I picked it up with forceps
- 10:30am
- Bugscope Team see its compound eye, streamlined into the head?
- Bugscope Team sweet
- Bugscope Team the tiny indentations in the exoskeleton make it more sturdy, and they also reflect light so that a tiny beetle like this is shiny
- Bugscope Team it has only a few hundred facets to its compound eye
- Bugscope Team I'm sorry I don't know anything about these beetles\
- Teacher we found it in a pond
Bugscope Team you did a fantastic job collecting specimens
- Teacher did our cockroach work
Bugscope Team I'm sorry -- it was too juicy to go into the 'scope. also quite large\
- Bugscope Team there was a dry roach as well, but I ran out of room on the stub\
- Bugscope Team this is so pretty
- Teacher what is this
- Bugscope Team insects breathe through openings in their cuticle -- they have an exoskeleton, which is like a shell -- called spiracles
- 10:35am
- Bugscope Team this is a closeup view of one of the spiracles on the larger larval insect -- caterpillar -- you sent
- Bugscope Team these protect the opening of the spiracle from letting in dust, but they are very interesting -- they resemble the gill-like structures we see on caddisfly larvae
- Bugscope Team if you take the mag down you can see where you are on the caterpillar\
- Bugscope Team this is a super small black ant
- Bugscope Team almost all of the ants you see are females
- Bugscope Team you can see that she has very rudimentary compound eyes
- Teacher can you tell us about the mouth
- Bugscope Team ants often look like they have a whole other insect in their mouths\
- Bugscope Team there are two sets of palps, called mandibular and maxillary palps, and they function like tiny utensils to help the ant feed, but they are like utensils that can also taste things
- 10:40am
- Bugscope Team this is a diatom -- a silica-shelled tiny water creature
- Bugscope Team you can see lots of diatoms on the cricket's head
- Bugscope Team to the back in this view you can see a circular diatom -- it looks like a fancy hubcap
- Bugscope Team you find diatoms in the water, of course, and also in dirt
- Bugscope Team if there were bacteria here, we would be able to see them as well
- Bugscope Team this is another diatom that looks like a super tiny canoe
- Bugscope Team lots of tiny rocks as well
- Bugscope Team if we took the mag down further you would see that we are looking at a very small area on the cricket's head
- Bugscope Team you sent very cool specimens
- 10:46am
- Bugscope Team let me know if you have any trouble getting to a particular preset -- sometimes they get stuck, we've noticed
- Bugscope Team the spiracle opens on the inside of the insect, or in this case the larval insect, the caterpillar, to ducts that bring air into the body
- Teacher tell us about this
- Bugscope Team this outer surface functions like a grille to keep big chunky stuff out
- Bugscope Team usually an insect has two spiracles per body segment, and they are often on the sides of the body
- Bugscope Team so they do not breathe through their mouths, but through the spiracles\
- Bugscope Team the inner ducts are called tracheae
- Bugscope Team that allows them to keep from getting too dry -- if they just close their spiracles
- Bugscope Team it's really good for us that insects have what is actually an inefficient means of breathing and getting oxygen to their inner organs
- 10:51am
- Teacher we cant get the cenitipede or the creepy cattterpillar
Bugscope Team this is the creep caterpillar -- very small\
- Bugscope Team caterpillars often have 5 or 6 simple eyes on either side of the head called 'stemmata'
- Bugscope Team the caterpillar's body is shriveled
- Bugscope Team after it died it dried up a bit
- Bugscope Team the head did not shrivel because it has a thicker exoskeleton
- Bugscope Team caterpillars have six legs, like the adult insects they will become when they metamorphose
- Bugscope Team they also have extra legs, though, called 'prolegs'
- Bugscope Team we see only one eye and a tiny stub that looks like an antenna
- Bugscope Team on this side of the head
- 10:56am
- Bugscope Team this is the pedicel, which is what the base of the antenna is called
- Bugscope Team you can see individual scales, which look like potato chips
- Bugscope Team if you had scales on the surface of your body and flew into a spider web, the scales would stick to the web and you could, perhaps, slip out
- Teacher what are we looking at
Bugscope Team this is where the mosquito antenna attaches to the head
- Bugscope Team those are tiny scales, which are actually modified setae, which is what we call the things that resemble hair
- Bugscope Team you can also see lots of microsetae here
- Bugscope Team microsetae provide more surface area that likely helps with flying, and they also help regulate the body temperature of the insect
- Bugscope Team this is so pretty -- one of the male antennae
- Teacher tell us about this
- 11:01am
- Bugscope Team the males have more ornate antennae so, in part, they will look attractive to the females, but mostly it is because they need to be able to smell low levels of chemicals in the air -- pheromones -- which are kind of like perfume
- Teacher Thanks for this awesome
- Bugscope Team the males can find the females by using the chemoreceptors on their antennae to pick up their scent
- Teacher We really enjoyed it
- Bugscope Team Thank you for sending such cool samples!
- Bugscope Team please connect with us again next year!
- Bugscope Team it is good to apply early, now, for next year
- Bugscope Team http\://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-068
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-068
- Bugscope Team that is better
- Bugscope Team a link to your member page\
- Teacher Thanks so much this was alot of fun
Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team Bye!
- Teacher We will definaatly do it again
- Bugscope Team totally cool!
- 11:06am
- Bugscope Team this is the fly
- Bugscope Team you cannot see its antennae, on top of the head, very well
- Bugscope Team MYP and Science I am going to shut down soon
- Bugscope Team Thank you for connecting today!
- Bugscope Team our next session is Thursday morning at the same time
