Connected on 2012-10-01 10:00:00 from Cook, Illinois, United States
- 8:38am
- Bugscope Team good morning!
- Bugscope Team sample is in 'scope and pumping down
- 8:47am
- 8:53am
- 8:59am
- 9:05am
- 9:10am
- 9:16am
- 9:32am
- Bugscope Team hi mrs d
- Bugscope Team pollen grain! welcome back to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team let us know when you have questions
- 9:39am
- 9:48am
- Teacher Finishing up some math and we'll be with you soon! The children are excited about the 'preview' I showed them!
- Bugscope Team super cool
- Teacher Just looked at the bugs that were mounted. Do we have either of the cicadas that were sent? I know that will be a question I am asked!
Bugscope Team sometimes we cannot use cicadas because they are so large there isn't room for anything else
- Bugscope Team so no cicadas today...
- Teacher Ok. Good to know the 'why'!
- Bugscope Team the stub we attach your specimens to is 1.75 inches in diameter. if we put a cicada on there would hardly be room for anything else.
- 9:55am
- Teacher Got it. We are assembling soon . . .
- Bugscope Team you sent a lot of nice critters, and there is a good assortment here
- Teacher They did go a great job collecting them this year :-)
Bugscope Team we could tell!
- 10:03am
- Bugscope Team the hairs are called 'setae' by entomologists, pronounced see-tee
- Bugscope Team they have a variety of purposes in helping insects sense their environment
- Bugscope Team some of them sense touch, or currents in the air, like wind
- Bugscope Team some of the setae sense smells in the air
- Bugscope Team and some sense hot and cold
- Bugscope Team we can see some of the wasp's legs here; they have lots of joints where our wrists would be. those joints make them flexible
- Bugscope Team they also have claws at the ends of their legs, for the same reason we have hands
- 10:08am
- Teacher Becca wants to know - Why do the wasps have claws? What do they use them for?
Bugscope Team they use their claws to hold things, and to help them cling to surfaces
- Teacher Ms L - wants to know does this wasp still have it's stinger?
Bugscope Team yes it does! It has a preset that you can choose or you can drive to the south
- Bugscope Team the stinger is very sharp and has ridges in it that help it cut into what it is going to sting
- Bugscope Team the ridges help it stick into your skin, but they are not so large that the wasp cannot withdraw its stinger
- Teacher Joseph wants to know why do wasps sting?
Bugscope Team they sting to protect themselves or their hive. If they perceive you as a threat, they will sting you. There are some wasps that will use that stinger to lay eggs into places or insects as well
- Bugscope Team more than 100,000 wasp species are called parasitoids; they sting other insects and inject eggs into their bodies
- 10:13am
- Teacher Emma wants to know if wasps use their claws to scratch and sting?
Bugscope Team they use their claws to hold onto things; their claws are so very small that they only tickle us
- Bugscope Team moths and butterflies are often covered with tiny scales, like this moth
- Bugscope Team other insects that have scales are silverfish, mosquitoes, and very few weevils and beetles
- Bugscope Team if you were covered with scales and flew into a spider web, you would have a good chance of escaping by shedding those scales and slipping away
- Teacher The students want to know what this big sphere is on this moth?
Bugscope Team that is one of the moth's compound eyes!
- Bugscope Team compound eyes have many, many lenses, or facets, called ommatidia
- Teacher What is the tube on the upper right (above the sphere) of this head?
Bugscope Team That is where the antenna is. It's broken, so there is a hole
- Bugscope Team now we can see the big sphere a little better!
- 10:19am
- Teacher Varsha wants to know what a compound eye is?
Bugscope Team a compound eye is called 'compound' because it has lots and lots of ommatidia, lots of individual lenses; it's not a simple eye with one lens
- Teacher Why does this wasp have hairs?
Bugscope Team the hairs help the insects to feel what is going on around it. They have tough exoskeletons that they can't feel anything with. The hairs are connected to nerves underneath.
- Teacher Orianna wants to know why the eye is so big on the moth?
Bugscope Team flying insects tend to have very big eyes. The bigger the eye, the more facets it will have. The more facets it has- the more views around it it can see. This moth can see almost all around it
- Bugscope Team moths can see kinds of light that we cannot see -- they can see ultraviolet light
- Teacher Jeremiah would like to know what the antenna on the moth is used for?
Bugscope Team moths and most other insects are sensitive to chemical odors -- to smells -- in the environment. the antennae have little sensors on them that allow the moth to smell the air. that brings them to flowers, which often have scents to attract the moths. and it also brings them to other moths, which produce pheromones, which are kind of like perfume.
- Bugscope Team flowers sometimes have colors in ultraviolet wavelengths that attract moths
- Bugscope Team moths also have especially large eyes because they are nocturnal -- they fly at night\
- 10:24am
- Bugscope Team this is the head and forelegs and antennae of an earwig, which is a plant pest
- Bugscope Team insects have lots of 'feelers' around their mouths that help them move and also taste their food. we can see some of those as well
- Teacher Nathalie would like to know what those bended things are on this earwig?
Bugscope Team those would be the antennae
- Bugscope Team see the compound eyes on the sides of the earwig's head?
- Teacher Eloise would like to know why are the bug's arms bent?
Bugscope Team the earwig is dead, and when bugs die their muscles and tendons contract -- they tighten up -- and that makes the arms and legs fold up like that
- Teacher Do all insects have compound eyes?
Bugscope Team many do, and most of the flying insects have very large ones with lots of individual lenses/facets
- Teacher Mary wonders where the eyes are on this bug?
- Bugscope Team many flying insects also have three other eyes -- 'simple' eyes -- that are called ocelli
- Teacher Ankedo would like to know what the hole is in the middle of this head?
Bugscope Team that's the mouth. It has a small set of hinged jaws
- 10:30am
- Bugscope Team this is a roly poly, or pillbug, sometimes also called a woodlouse. it is not an insect but is actually a crustacean, like a shrimp or lobster
- Teacher How do insects sleep if they have no eyelids and can't close their eyes?
Bugscope Team they don't sleep like you and me. They enter a period of rest, where if they are needed to move to get away from a predator really quickly- they can. Fish are similar
- Bugscope Team we can tell when a 'bug' is an insect, usually, because it has six legs, a head, a thorax, and abdomen, and two antennae. right away we know that the roly poly is not an insect because it has seven pairs of legs.
- Bugscope Team the legs of an insect are attached to the thorax, although sometimes the first pair is attached to what is called a prothorax
- Bugscope Team see the roly poly's antennae?
- Bugscope Team some insects have hairs, or setae, or bristles that when they are touched make them start running automatically
- 10:35am
- Bugscope Team this is a crane fly. they often look to us like giant mosquitoes, but they do not bite
- Teacher Alyssa would like to know if there is a mouth on this fly?
Bugscope Team we can see the compound eye, and to the left of it we see an extension of the head. the mouthparts are to the left of that.
- Bugscope Team insect mouths are very complicated compared to our mouths
- Teacher What are the spheres we can see now?
Bugscope Team looks like a ball of dirt or dust maybe
- Teacher Is this part of the mouth?
Bugscope Team yes though it is difficult to tell which part. We are either on part of the palp- which helps taste or move around food, or we are on part of the tongue
- Bugscope Team I read that adult craneflies feed on nectar, and that is likely why we see these brushlike mouthparts
- Bugscope Team some adult craneflies do not eat at all
- 10:41am
- Bugscope Team some craneflies -- in the larval stage -- are predatory and may eat mosquito larvae
- Bugscope Team this is one of the roly poly's 14 legs
- Teacher Abeer would like to know what these spikes on the roly poly legs are?
Bugscope Team the spikes help the roly poly adhere to surfaces, and some of them are likely also sensitive to touch
- Bugscope Team now we see that ants can also have compound eyes!
- Teacher Why is this called a shy ant?
Bugscope Team because of the position of the leg- it looks like it's trying to hide its face
- Bugscope Team most ants, wasps, and bees you see are girls. They do all the work for their colonies/hives
- Teacher So the shy ant is your name for it, not the scientific one?!
Bugscope Team haha Yes it is our name for it today
- Bugscope Team these little portholes are found on the last several segments of many centipede's bodies
- 10:46am
- Teacher What is a centipede considered since the first graders know it isn't an insect?
Bugscope Team sometimes they are called 'myriapods'
- Teacher Brayden thinks these holes look like airplane windows. What do they do for the bug?
Bugscope Team we read that centipedes produce a smelly liquid sometimes, to deter ants from bothering them. we don't know for sure, but we thought that maybe this was where the liquid comes from.
- Bugscope Team tell Brayden that we agree -- we think they look like airplane windows too.
- Bugscope Team many insects and comparable arthropods have chemical defenses against ants
- Bugscope Team the biggest centipede is 12 inches long and found in the Amazon
- Teacher What are the slivers on the left side of this eye?
Bugscope Team those are scales from another insect- maybe a moth
- 10:51am
- Teacher Do insects have a good sense of smell if they are using chemical defenses?
Bugscope Team yes they often have a very refined sense of smell. ants use scents to communicate, and many other insects do as well
- Teacher Sienna wants to know why it looks like there is a little bit of hair on its eye?
Bugscope Team some of the hairs we see at the bottom of the eye let the ladybug know when its head has moved, or its eye has moved; some of the hairs we see on insects are for self-sensing
- Bugscope Team ants have two of these combs -- one on each of the forelegs
- Bugscope Team they can slide their antennae through the combs to clean stuff off of the antennae
- Teacher Nathan wants to know what is this comb of an ant we are looking at?
Bugscope Team the comb is like a brush, and it helps the ant clean her antennae
- Bugscope Team insects do not breathe through their mouths like we do
- 10:57am
- Teacher The students would like to know what this is?
Bugscope Team this is kind of like a nose that the ant breathes through. there are usually two per body segment, one on each side. they bring air into tracheae, on the inside of the body, that deliver the air to various internal organs
- Teacher It looks like an eye
Bugscope Team inside we see that it has microsetae that function kind of like a filter to keep dust out
- Teacher Sienna would like to know if the outter part of this is a shell?
Bugscope Team it's part of the exoskeleton of the insect, which is like a shell
- Bugscope Team that is why the insects have so many 'hairs' -- the exoskeleton is a kind of shell, and it is kind of like a suit of armor. the insect cannot feel something touching the exoskeleton unless there are setae sticking through it to sense that touch
- Bugscope Team some of the tiny hairs we see help the insect keep its temperature constant
- Bugscope Team this is cool
- 11:03am
- Teacher Mary wants to know why there are little holes on these scales?
Bugscope Team the holes help make them lighter and also may contain pigment granules or provide structural color
- Teacher Eloise wants to know what do the scales do for the moth?
Bugscope Team they do lots of things! one is provide color that warns away predators; one is to help hold air so the moth can fly; one is to help the moth escape from a spiderweb by sticking to the web and releasing from the body or wing
- Teacher Sienna wants to know why the scales overlap?
Bugscope Team overlapping gives the wings full coverage and makes the color pattern continuous
- Teacher Becca wants to know why moths need scales?
Bugscope Team they help the moth fly, give it color, and also help save the moth if it flies into a spiderweb
- Teacher Joecy wants to know why there are lines on the scales?
Bugscope Team the lines are ridges that strengthen the scale, like a ridged potato chip; they are also responsible for the structural color Cate mentioned -- the ridges interfere with light and produce colors that may change with the direction you are viewing from
- Teacher Eloise wants to know if the scales grow back after the moth loses them?
Bugscope Team no they don't grow back. Usually moths don't live long enough to lose so many that it can't live anymore. They have thousands of scales
- Teacher Emma wants to know what happens if a moth bumps into something and it's wing gets hurt, what will happen to the moth?
Bugscope Team it can lose some of the scales without too much trouble, but if it loses too many scales it may not be able to fly anymore
- 11:10am
- Teacher How long does a moth usually live if it doesn't live long?
Bugscope Team it really depends; they may live for a week, and they may live for months; if they live in the Tropics they may live longer than they do in temperate zones like we do
- Bugscope Team this is about 5 times higher magnification than a light microscope normally provides
- Bugscope Team and we can go still higher, quite a bit
- Bugscope Team so pretty!
- Teacher Thank you for all of the wonderful information! Our attention is spent and we will move on and allow you to help the next scheduled session.We are all very appreciative and glad we were able to spend this time with you! Have a good day :-)
- Bugscope Team Thank You, Mrs D!
- Bugscope Team This was fun for us!
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team Thank you for connecting with us today!
- 11:15am
- Bugscope Team thank you for bugscope with us!
- Bugscope Team see you next year!
