night bulbs, site supporters PLO

I have a question, what are everyone's thoughts on the night bulbs??


This is not my research:

Something to think about when considering night lights for geckos:

Nocturnal colour vision in geckos
Lina S. V. Roth and Almut Kelber
University of Lund, Department of Cell and Organism Biology,
Vision Group, Helgonava¨gen 3, S-223 62 Lund, Sweden
Author for correspondence ([email protected]).

PDF "Quick view" in Google:
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cac ... jLUaVScy8w

Our results show that nocturnal geckos are able to dis-
criminate colours in very dim light. Exactly what they use
this ability for and precisely how well they see colour,
remains to be investigated. Geckos are only the second ani-
mal group after a nocturnal hawkmoth (Kelber et al. 2002)
that have been proved to see colour when we are colour-
blind. However, this remarkable ability may be more com-
mon than we thought.

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The pupils and optical systems of gecko eyes

Lina S. V. Roth
Linda Lundström
Almut Kelber
Ronald H. H. Kröger and
Peter Unsbo

http://www.journalofvision.org/content/9/3/27.full


During the evolution of the diurnal lizards, their eyes have lost the typical vertebrate duplex retina with both rods and cones
and are instead left only with different types of single and double cones (Röll, 2000; Underwood, 1970; Walls, 1942). However,
at some point in evolution a group of lizards, the geckos, turned to a nocturnal lifestyle. In response to the demands of nocturnal
vision without rods, the cones of nocturnal geckos have become much larger and more light-sensitive than those of their diurnal
relatives (Röll, 2000). Nocturnal geckos have retained three different photopigments sensitive to UV, blue, and green (Loew, 1994)
and their eyes are sensitive enough to obtain color information at night (Roth & Kelber, 2004). At intensities corresponding to dim
moonlight (0.002 cd m−2), the nocturnal helmet geckos, Tarentola chazaliae, could discriminate colors in a behavioral dual choice experiment.


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http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/nge ... ticle.html

National Geographic Society


Night Vision


A gecko also can see in the dark. How did it develop this super adaptation? Scientists think that long ago, geckos were mostly active during the day.
Most lizards are. Today, most geckos are nocturnal, or active at night. Being active at night led to other adaptations.

The gecko's eyes changed. The pupils, or openings in the center of the eye, became bigger to let in more light at night. Deep inside the gecko's eye,
other changes slowly happened, too. The result? Nocturnal geckos can do something few living creatures can—they see colors in the dark.

A nocturnal gecko's eye structure is different from that of other lizards. Most vertebrates, or animals with backbones, have two kinds of cells in their
eyes that sense light. These are called rods and cones. Rods pick up only black and white. Cones detect colors, but only when there's lots of light.

Lizards do not have rods, only cones. Geckos that come out at night have three kinds of super-size cones. These cones give nocturnal geckos
their super color vision.

They can indeed see these red and blue lights and I personally don't reccomend them. This is my only reasoning to the room heater. Just imputting

My thoughts are I've been using night glo bulbs for 15 years now and I've never seen any difference in the behavior of any of my reptiles, diurnal or nocturnal. that applies to the moon glo bulbs that are purplish black colored. The red colored bulbs I think are a different story. I used one for a box turtle at one time and he seemed to be able to see the red light. Anyway, I still use the black moon glo bulbs and I plan to continue to. If someone is concerned about it they could switch to ceramic heat emitters though.

I personally prefer the night black heat lights for all my reptiles, as it gives off a very soft purplish glow that doesn't seem to bother any of them.

I won't use the infrared night lights though. I used to have one on my water dragon's enclosure and couldn't figure out why she wasn't sleeping well and was restless all night, then spent half the next day in a half-sleep state. I thought it was just because she was young, or not used to the daytime light cycle yet. After visiting one of my herp vets though, she too explained that she believes reptiles can see the red lights and she is adamantly against using them for that reason. She said even for nocturnal creatures, the presence of light can mess with their day/night cycle as it gives them the impression that it is light out when it should be dark. I switched out my dragon's light for the night black one that night, and she hasn't had any issues sleeping since, and is up and awake first thing in the morning.

That's my experience anyway. I have no experience with the blue moon glow bulbs though, so can't comment on them.

If you overlook the previous post, according to studies, geckos are the 2nd species other than humans that can see in full spectrum. They see everything from yellow and red - black and white. Thank you for the input ! keep them coming!

A couple of questions have been forwarded to me regarding "foogy eye" Thus i want everyones opinion!

Being able to distinguish colour in low light/no light conditions does not indicate full vision of human visible red spectrum. It is generally believed, with supporting studies, that nocturnal gecko visual spectrum runs from the outside edge of ultraviolet and stops shorter on red spectrum than humans. This does mean they can see the "moon" light purple/blue bulbs to the same degree that humans can, which is why those bulbs are designed to be much dimmer than the red ones. As for the red, while they can discern some part of it, their perception of it is not nearly as complete as human's. They are certainly seeing something, but the extent to which they are perceiving it as a relatively bright light has not been proven. Whether or not your individual gecko is bothered by the infrared/red bulbs seems to be very much a matter of personal preference on the gecko's part.

I don't and have never used bulbs at night for any reptiles, gecko or otherwise. If you need to increase the ambient heat in a cage during winter then a heat emitter is a better choice. But having any sort of colored light on the tank seems unnatural and unnecessary to an animal that does just fine in total darkness.