Connected on 2012-05-17 12:15:00 from Essex, New Jersey, United States
- 11:39am
- Bugscope Team finishing up today's presets
- 12:07pm
- Bugscope Team hi frankie!
- Bugscope Team Hi Frankie!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team our session starts in 7 or 8 minutes
- 12:16pm
- Bugscope Team Mrs Lissy!
- Teacher hi there! We will be ready in a few minutes.
- Bugscope Team Hello and Welcome back!
- Bugscope Team please let us know as soon as anyone has any questions, and if you have any problems, of course
- 12:22pm
- Bugscope Team this is a haltere, kind of hard to make out
- Bugscope Team it's a modified hindwing that balances the motion of the wing; there's one on each side
- Teacher can you tell us what a haltere is?
- Bugscope Team halteres often look like punching bags
- Teacher can you tell us what a haltere is?
- 12:27pm
- Bugscope Team halteres beat opposite the wings as they fly. It gives them a gyroscopic effect
- Bugscope Team in flies, which have two wings and are in the family Diptera (di- means two, and ptera means wing), what might have been a hindwing millions of years ago is now a haltere. The haltere is small but kind of heavy, and it beats back and forth with a motion opposite (as Cate says) the motion of the wings.
- Bugscope Team flies have two wings, but bees and wasps and the few ants that fly have four wings, as do dragonflies
- Bugscope Team when bees and wasps fly, they connect the fore- and the hindwing on each side together, so essentially they have two wings
- Bugscope Team this is a cute little ladybug larva
- Bugscope Team you can see the ladybug larva's head, and its mouthparts; the little knoblike thing on the head is one of its antennae
- Teacher i meant for
- Teacher what are the spikes on his back fro?
Bugscope Team they probably help the larva from being eaten
- Bugscope Team if you ate something that spiky it would probably hurt your throat
- Bugscope Team the whole of its body is kind of spiny like that
- 12:33pm
- Bugscope Team what we see on the front of its body is actually a whole lot of aphids
- Bugscope Team now we see the adult ladybug's claw, and the things that look like hairbrushes are pads called pulvilluses.
- Teacher is there hair on its claw?
Bugscope Team there are hairs on the leg right before the claw. The hairs are called setae when they are on insects
- Bugscope Team a pulvillus has lots of tiny hairs, called tenent setae, that are sticky and help the ladybug cling to surfaces
- Bugscope Team the hairs help the insect to feel what it is touching here
- Bugscope Team their exoskeleton is like a suit of armor. They can't feel things through their exoskeleton, so they have those hairs to help
- Teacher do the aphids bite the ladybug?
Bugscope Team ladybugs as both adults and larvae feed on aphids
- Bugscope Team aphids are very small and also softbodied; they don't have a thick chitin exoskeleton like most insects
- 12:38pm
- Bugscope Team we are not sure why the aphids are on the ladybug larva. aphids have tubes that look like dual exhaust pipes, called cornicles or siphuncles that produce a kind of wax that hardens in the air. that wax can immobilize an ant that is bothering the aphid. it is possible the aphids are stuck to the ladybug larva with that wax, but it is perhaps more likely that they were collected at the same time and the aphids just stuck randomly to the ladybug larva
- Bugscope Team this is really cool -- you can see the compound eye, with all of its tiny hexagonal facets, and to the right is one of the antennae
- Bugscope Team this is cool too -- you can see three 'ocelli' to the left; those are 'simple' eyes
- Teacher is this the eye and does it have eyelashes? is it a compound eye?
Bugscope Team the compound eyes are the lighter bumpy parts in the lower left and upper-middle right. There are also 3 small round bumps in the upper left that are simple eyes called ocelli
- Bugscope Team there are long hairs here, but they are not eyelashes
- Bugscope Team the large bristles on the top of the head help the fly sense touch and wind
- 12:44pm
- Teacher what is between the eyes that looks like it can be a nose?
Bugscope Team that triangular area in the upper left is where the ocelli are. ocelli are simple eyes that don't see very well but sense light well enough to help the fly maintain a sense of direction when it flies
- Teacher thank you so much for all of the information! The other 2nd grade will be joining you for the remainder of the session and we apologize for any duplicate questions. We really enjoyed ourselves, but it is their turn!
- Bugscope Team insects do not have noses. instead, some of the setae (hairs) are chemosensory, meaning that they help the insect taste smells in the air
- Bugscope Team no problem at all about duplicate questions, of course. please tell the first second grade Thank You for us.
- Bugscope Team although insects do not have noses, that does not mean that they are mouth-breathers. insects have pores on their bodies called spiracles, through which they breathe.
- 12:51pm
- Teacher Hi there. Can you tell us a little bit about how you get the insects into the disks?
Bugscope Team we take a plain aluminum disk and cover it with double stick carbon tape. Because the tape alone isn't usually sticky enough, we put a drop of silver pain down wherever we plan on placing an insect. The silver paint also helps to ground any extra charge from the electrons. After all the insects are placed, we coat everything in a very thin layer of metal to make everything conductive so that we get a nice image
- Bugscope Team oh and all the insects are dead and dry
- Teacher What are the spikes on the ladybug's claw?
Bugscope Team that is where the ladybug can use a pincher hold on whatever it is trying to get. Claws are like hands for them
- 12:57pm
- Bugscope Team the long spikes coming off the leg are hairs, which we call setae
- Bugscope Team setae help the insects to sense what is going on around it
- Teacher what are the spiky things on the arm?
- Bugscope Team some of the spikes, or bristles, or setae are used for proprioception, which is self-sensing. the insect can tell, when some of those spikes bend, that it is overextending its arm, for example
- Teacher what are the spiky things on the arm?
Bugscope Team those are all hairs. They don't have sensitive skin like we do. Those hairs are attached to nerves underneath the exoskeleton.
- Bugscope Team this is the face of an adult ladybug
- Bugscope Team you can see its rounded compound eyes, on either side of its head, and you can see where its antennae fold down, and you can also see its four palps, which help it taste and move its food around
- Bugscope Team in addition, you can see one of its mandibles (jaws)
- 1:02pm
- Teacher do ladybugs have teeth or a nose?
Bugscope Team not in the traditional sense. Their antennae work as olfactory receptors (nose), and the mandibles which scot just mentioned are sort of like teeth in that the break the food up
- Teacher what are those hexagons on the ladybug's eye?
Bugscope Team those are the individual facets of the compound eye.
- Bugscope Team also, they breathe using special pores called spiracles
Bugscope Team yes, these are located through out the body, these holes (usually a hole on each side, per segment) lead to trachea (a network of tubes) that brings the oxygen to each cell
- Bugscope Team the facets of the compound eye are like individual lenses, and they are called ommatidia
- 1:07pm
- Bugscope Team now we are looking at one of the ladybug's palps, which are accessory mouthparts
- Bugscope Team a moth!
- Bugscope Team moths, butterflies, silverfish, and mosquitoes, plus a very few other insects, are covered with modified setae that are called scales, like the scales we see on butterfly wings
- Teacher why are moth's so furry? What are the sticks coming out of the side of its head?
Bugscope Team the fur is made of scales, or setae, and one benefit of having so many scales, which are loose, is that if the moth flies into a spiderweb, it can leave the scales sticking to the web and (sometimes) fly back out
- Bugscope Team the sticks to the left and right are the moth's antennae
- 1:14pm
- Teacher why are the eyes so puffy?what is in the center between the eyes?
Bugscope Team the big round puffy compound eyes help the moth see all around it without turning its head, or its body
- Teacher how are butterfly antennae different than moth antennae?
Bugscope Team often butterfly antennae are long and thin, and they have a larger bulbous segment at the end; antennae of moths are said to be short and feathery in comparison, but it depends. male moth antennae are sometimes very ornate, and frilly compared to female moth antennae\
- Bugscope Team sorry this preset had drifted a bit since we made it
- Bugscope Team it does show you that these are live images from the scanning electron microscope
- Bugscope Team you can see that there are lots of aphids on the ladybug larva's body
- Teacher do insects blink?
Bugscope Team they don't have eyelids!
Bugscope Team good question. No they don't. They don't have eyelids.
- 1:19pm
- Bugscope Team If they get dirt on their eye, they can sometimes wipe it off using their forelegs
- Teacher thank you so much for answering our questions!!
- Bugscope Team you bet!
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team thanks!
- Bugscope Team thanks!
