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Bug’s Body Parts: Bio60_2019

| Sun, Feb 24, 2019, 4:59 PM



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I was searching for an idea for my second Foldscope post, and one fell right into my cup of tea: a small insect that had evidently drowned in the little pool of water left overnight in the cup. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I planned to examine its body parts to see if it was possible to arrive at an identification.

After fishing the insect out of my cup, I placed it on a glass slide using tweezers and detached a couple body parts – two antennae and a few legs – and plated two of them by pipeting a couple drops of water onto the slide and placing a glass coverslip on top. Due to the small size of the insect, I wasn’t actually sure if the second body part I had plated was a leg or an antenna! The only way to find out was to take a look with the Foldscope.

Looking at the first body part (antenna), I saw clear segmentation, with each brown segment coated with many small bristles. Also, there was a strange, dark casing surrounding the entire antenna, which I couldn’t seem to find on any photos I saw online. Could this possibly be the edge of the droplet of water being repelled from the surface of the antenna?

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The segments didn’t seem to get much smaller towards either end of the antenna, but did get a bit lengthier and ended with a different-colored segment, possibly what the insect uses for sensing. In my opinion, this antenna looks most like the moniliform antenna found in some beetles and termites, but I could very well be wrong: https://thedragonflywoman.com/2011/04/15/insect-antennae-part-1/. Are there any entomologists who could perhaps weigh in?

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Looking at the other body part, I saw that it looked nearly identical to the first antennae, so I guessed that it was one also. Again, there was the mysterious casing, which I thought to be a result of the repulsion between the water and the antenna.

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In the end, I dropped the bug on the floor (oops) and couldn’t find it again, so I didn’t get a chance to look at its head, its legs, or its wings to give more hints towards its identity. What I learned from this observation was the astounding variety of insect antennae types, each corresponding to a different lineage of insects, and that insect ID is much more difficult than I had expected.



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Type of Sample
unknown
Foldscope Lens Magnification
140x

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