Colored lights

[DocZ]

I frequently hear that colored lights are bad for chameleon eyes and they shouldn’t be used. Where does this come from?

If you think about full spectrum “white” light it’s made up of a broad spectrum of wavelengths that our eyes interpret as white. Which logically means it contains both blue and red wavelengths identical to the wavelengths that are said to be dangerous. Why does it no longer pose a danger when it includes the other wavelengths

I found some wavelength diagrams for some commonly used lights and they both contain blue and red wavelengths with particularly large spikes in the shorter wavelength blue spectrum

It’s entirely possible there’s science behind this danger. If someone has the science, I’d love to read it

Reptisun T5 ho 10.0

Arcadia T5 ho 6%

6500k “grow lights“ will have an even wider spike within the green/yellow/orange/red wavelengths

 

[Mendez]

Interesting topic. Before I comment, I just want people to know that I am no expert and have no evidence to back my claim.

With that said, like you, I am skeptical to believe that "colored lights are bad for chameleon eyes and they shouldn’t be used ." I find it hard to believe colored lights actually harm a chameleon's eyes. A quick search on the interwebs and I find many debates on what color lights reptiles can see a night. Maybe somehow someone saw these debates and translated it to mean that colored lights shouldn't be used at all??? That may be one possibility of how this idea of colored lights being bad may have started.

Though I would be curious to see how a cham would react under colored lights. Even though the purple and blue wavelengths are full blast, would the cham recognize the lights-on as day? I figure their parietal eye wouldn't allow them to sleep (as this is why we don't recommend night lights). I couldn't find any studies on this matter (though I didn't look too hard). I think I'd be more curious if anyone with correct husbandry and supplementation has anecdotal evidence that would be harder to dismiss as a random event or inexperienced keeper with poor husbandry. Of course scientific or peer-reviewed evidence would be all the better.

All in all, I feel like I have contributed nothing to your question--only a possibility as to why people say colored lights are bad.

 

[kinyonga]

Interesting topic. Before I comment, I just want people to know that I am no expert and have no evidence to back my claim.

With that said, like you, I am skeptical to believe that "colored lights are bad for chameleon eyes and they shouldn’t be used ." I find it hard to believe colored lights actually harm a chameleon's eyes. A quick search on the interwebs and I find many debates on what color lights reptiles can see a night. Maybe somehow someone saw these debates and translated it to mean that colored lights shouldn't be used at all??? That may be one possibility of how this idea of colored lights being bad may have started.

Though I would be curious to see how a cham would react under colored lights. Even though the purple and blue wavelengths are full blast, would the cham recognize the lights-on as day? I figure their parietal eye wouldn't allow them to sleep (as this is why we don't recommend night lights). I couldn't find any studies on this matter (though I didn't look too hard). I think I'd be more curious if anyone with correct husbandry and supplementation has anecdotal evidence that would be harder to dismiss as a random event or inexperienced keeper with poor husbandry. Of course scientific or peer-reviewed evidence would be all the better.

All in all, I feel like I have contributed nothing to your question--only a possibility as to why people say colored lights are bad.

Are you meaning if colored lights are only used at night or during the day as basking lights?

 

[DocZ]

Interesting topic. Before I comment, I just want people to know that I am no expert and have no evidence to back my claim.

With that said, like you, I am skeptical to believe that "colored lights are bad for chameleon eyes and they shouldn’t be used ." I find it hard to believe colored lights actually harm a chameleon's eyes. A quick search on the interwebs and I find many debates on what color lights reptiles can see a night. Maybe somehow someone saw these debates and translated it to mean that colored lights shouldn't be used at all??? That may be one possibility of how this idea of colored lights being bad may have started.

Though I would be curious to see how a cham would react under colored lights. Even though the purple and blue wavelengths are full blast, would the cham recognize the lights-on as day? I figure their parietal eye wouldn't allow them to sleep (as this is why we don't recommend night lights). I couldn't find any studies on this matter (though I didn't look too hard). I think I'd be more curious if anyone with correct husbandry and supplementation has anecdotal evidence that would be harder to dismiss as a random event or inexperienced keeper with poor husbandry. Of course scientific or peer-reviewed evidence would be all the better.

All in all, I feel like I have contributed nothing to your question--only a possibility as to why people say colored lights are bad.

I think you brought up the one issue that may have led to the “don’t use colored lights” recommendations

We work all day and want to see our reptiles at night when we’re home so we use “night lights” that the reptiles can undoubtedly detect and I’m sure it disrupts their needed rest. If we add blasting death metal, it’s like a CIA interrogation chamber. This would affect their health I’m sure

 

[DocZ]

Are you meaning if colored lights are only used at night or during the day as basking lights?

Only during the day.

See my above comment on nighttime torture chambers with red or blue light all night

 

[kinyonga]

I'm no expert...haven't studied this is enough yet..but..chameleons have a negative lens in their eyes ...they're the only animal that I know of that does. The light passing through the lens would be split differently than light split into the individual wave lengths through a human eye, for example. This might be something to do with it.
I'm not sure if the chameleon's eye is the shape of this negative lens or not....but just to give you food for thought...
https://www.ducksters.com/science/physics/lenses_and_light.php

If you use a blue light for instance on a chameleon....wouldn't a blue light produce more blue wavelength light than a the blue light broken down from a white bulb would produce. (Not sure I'll be saying this in a clear enough way that it will be understood).
If so....if blue light caused problems for a chameleon wouldn't a blue light bulb cause more problems than the amount of blue light that's in a white light spectrum?

 

[DocZ]

I'm no expert...haven't studied this is enough yet..but..chameleons have a negative lens in their eyes ...they're the only animal that I know of that does. The light passing through the lens would be split differently than light split into the individual wave lengths through a human eye, for example. This might be something to do with it.
I'm not sure if the chameleon's eye is the shape of this negative lens or not....but just to give you food for thought...
https://www.ducksters.com/science/physics/lenses_and_light.php

I’ll have to look into this. I checked your link, do you mean they do not have a convergent lens that creates an “upside down” image on their retina like yours and mine does?

 

[Mendez]

Are you meaning if colored lights are only used at night or during the day as basking lights?

Yep, during the day. I am saying that people probably got the idea that using colored lights during the day are bad by doing a quick search on the internet to see people saying the colored lights are bad to use at night, and that somehow people have mistranslated the concept to also mean that you shouldn't use them during the day. Just speculation.

 

[kinyonga]

Blue light causes for one thing, a disruption in the sleep cycle of humans...I don't know if it causes the same type of problems for chameleons or not...I haven't investigated it enough to yet.

 

[Kaizen]

Ugh, I feel like the analogy I’m about to spin is barf worthy, but take it or leave it...

Imagine a species whose foot pads have evolved to trod on a particular soil mixture of sharp gravel, broken branches, peat moss, dry leaves, and moss. For millions of years, nature has selected only those individuals whose particular foot pad constitution gave them a survival advantage on these soils. Now put those individuals on pure sharp gravel, pure soft moss, etc., and you’ll end up problems. My guess is that an individual on pure sharp gravel will end up with foot abrasions/lacerations, because there isn’t enough soft material in the soil. The ones on pure moss will develop weird growths because there isn’t enough grit to wear down the foot pads. In all cases, a missing aspect of the foot fodder that this species has evolved to live with will result in problems. Indeed, it might even be the case that a particualr tannin, released from fallen leaves, plays a role in the prevention of foot fungus. Take one part of the evolutionarily important substrate away, and you might cause problems.

That’s just Kaizen philosophizing, and I might be full of s&it, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[DocZ]

I'm no expert...haven't studied this is enough yet..but..chameleons have a negative lens in their eyes ...they're the only animal that I know of that does. The light passing through the lens would be split differently than light split into the individual wave lengths through a human eye, for example. This might be something to do with it.
I'm not sure if the chameleon's eye is the shape of this negative lens or not....but just to give you food for thought...
https://www.ducksters.com/science/physics/lenses_and_light.php

If you use a blue light for instance on a chameleon....wouldn't a blue light produce more blue wavelength light than a the blue light broken down from a white bulb would produce. (Not sure I'll be saying this in a clear enough way that it will be understood).
If so....if blue light caused problems for a chameleon wouldn't a blue light bulb cause more problems than the amount of blue light that's in a white light spectrum?

Oh this is very cool. The negatively powered lens sort of magnifies the image
The Biology of Chameleons p.44

 

[Kaizen]

Lemme re-read that section.

 

[Mendez]

Ugh, I feel like the analogy I’m about to spin is barf worthy, but take it or leave it...

Imagine a species whose foot pads have evolved to trod on a particular soil mixture of sharp gravel, broken branches, peat moss, dry leaves, and moss. For millions of years, nature has selected only those individuals whose particular foot pad constitution gave them a survival advantage on these soils. Now put those individuals on pure sharp gravel, pure soft moss, etc., and you’ll end up problems. My guess is that an individual on pure sharp gravel will end up with foot abrasions/lacerations, because there isn’t enough soft material in the soil. The ones on pure moss will develop weird growths because there isn’t enough grit to wear down the foot pads. In all cases, a missing aspect of the foot fodder that this species has evolved to live with will result in problems. Indeed, it might even be the case that a particualr tannin, released from fallen leaves, plays a role in the prevention of foot fungus. Take one part of the evolutionarily important substrate away, and you might cause problems.

That’s just Kaizen philosophizing, and I might be full of s&it, so take it with a grain of salt.

I absolutely agree with this philosophical train of thought. If we can, we should aim for what they experience in nature, or as close as we can replicate it. Your thinking is a safe assumption to make. However, it is possible that a hoof on different soil will remain the same. You can take the same analogy and apply it to bearded dragons. Differing substrates may lead to zero differences while other substrates can cause irritation and impaction. For the sake of this argument, we don't know which substrates (--light--) will cause issues and which ones won't. Not a bad analogy my dude.

 

[DocZ]

Ugh, I feel like the analogy I’m about to spin is barf worthy, but take it or leave it...

Imagine a species whose foot pads have evolved to trod on a particular soil mixture of sharp gravel, broken branches, peat moss, dry leaves, and moss. For millions of years, nature has selected only those individuals whose particular foot pad constitution gave them a survival advantage on these soils. Now put those individuals on pure sharp gravel, pure soft moss, etc., and you’ll end up problems. My guess is that an individual on pure sharp gravel will end up with foot abrasions/lacerations, because there isn’t enough soft material in the soil. The ones on pure moss will develop weird growths because there isn’t enough grit to wear down the foot pads. In all cases, a missing aspect of the foot fodder that this species has evolved to live with will result in problems. Indeed, it might even be the case that a particualr tannin, released from fallen leaves, plays a role in the prevention of foot fungus. Take one part of the evolutionarily important substrate away, and you might cause problems.

That’s just Kaizen philosophizing, and I might be full of s&it, so take it with a grain of salt.

I always appreciate your philosophizing. I definitely get that this is not natural light for the Chams, but for us lowly indoor keepers, nothing we use is natural light. This could be an issue the same way any “unnatural” environmental conditions could be harmful

Usually I see this with a post pertaining to a Cham with an eye problem, and the replies all admonish the blue light and seek to be sure the blue spiking UVB is correct. There seems to be a disconnect there. It seems more likely that there’s another issue at play

As I stated before, I don’t know the science, but I’m not buying the colored light game either without more information

 

[kinyonga]

The chameleon eye...
https://radiocaminha.pt/chameleons-eye/

Blue light in humans...
https://www.allaboutvision.com/en-ca/digital-eye-strain/blue-light/

 

[DocZ]

The chameleon eye...
https://radiocaminha.pt/chameleons-eye/

Combining this with tetrachromacy. I now know scientifically why all my Chams don’t like me. I must look grotesque

 

[kinyonga]

I added to my previous post...and may add more to it to keep all the information together.

 

[Kaizen]

Yeah

I absolutely agree with this philosophical train of thought. If we can, we should aim for what they experience in nature, or as close as we can replicate it. Your thinking is a safe assumption to make. However, it is possible that a hoof on different soil will remain the same. You can take the same analogy and apply it to bearded dragons. Differing substrates may lead to zero differences while other substrates can cause irritation and impaction. For the sake of this argument, we don't know which substrates (--light--) will cause issues and which ones won't. Not a bad analogy my dude.

yup, agreed. The analogy could be terrible, or good. The fact is, we don’t know enough to even evaluate it. Even the book section @DocZ referenced is like 500 words—and that’s from the best and brightest in the chameleons research community. That being said, and while I appreciate your comment, I have some reservations about the view that natural = best. Trying to replicate every aspect of nature in the hopes of giving our chams the best life might be wrong-headed.

 

[Kaizen]

I always appreciate your philosophizing. I definitely get that this is not natural light for the Chams, but for us lowly indoor keepers, nothing we use is natural light. This could be an issue the same way any “unnatural” environmental conditions could be harmful

Usually I see this with a post pertaining to a Cham with an eye problem, and the replies all admonish the blue light and seek to be sure the blue spiking UVB is correct. There seems to be a disconnect there. It seems more likely that there’s another issue at play

As I stated before, I don’t know the science, but I’m buying the colored light game either without more information

As I am usually first to say, I might be full of s&it. Moreover, I keep all my chams in a greenhouse, so I have zero experience with spectrum focused LEDs. More clearly, I actually don’t know whether there is an actual problem with the blue/red panels with respect to chams. Obviously my intuitions go a particular direction, but intuitions don’t equal evidence, and I’m short in the latter. Perhaps a multiple year study is in order, Doc? Have at it.

 

[DocZ]

As I am usually first to say, I might be full of s&it. Moreover, I keep all my chams in a greenhouse, so I have zero experience with spectrum focused LEDs. More clearly, I actually don’t know whether there is an actual problem with the blue/red panels with respect to chams. Obviously my intuitions go a particular direction, but intuitions don’t equal evidence, and I’m short in the latter. Perhaps a multiple year study is in order, Doc? Have at it.

Ha! I’ll get right on that
I’m planning an advanced degree in chameleon ophthalmology, so no big deal