Lighting for Albino

[guidofatherof5]

Its difficult to classify the vision of reptiles as a whole, since there is so much variation between the different species. However, a good portion of diurnal reptiles see much better than humans. They have a fourth type of cone (we have three) that actually allows them to see into the ultraviolet spectrum. Like Concinnusman said, there are some that do not see past about 600 nm (which is where the orange to red wavelengths begin) however, this is not true for all reptiles, let alone all snakes.

Snakes seem to have a pretty high degree of variation in vision. For instance, ball pythons have almost no cones, instead they have a huge percentage of short rods for vision. This isnt too surprising when you consider its a nocturnal animal. Thamnophis, however, have no rods whatsoever. That I am aware of there are only a few studies on their vision and both found sirtalis, marcianus and similis to not have any rods at all. Their peak absorption was around 550-600 nm, which means they do see red, just not as well as we humans do.

With albinos, often it is not that they see color any differently, rather that since they do not have any pigment in their irises, light affects them more. Red light is a longer wavelength and so it is possible that with your albino the red light is just more comfortable for it than white light. If you arent using the light for heat, you might actually want to get one of those silver dipped bulbs, a CHE or even those low light LEDs you mentioned. Or just do away with it altogether if there is a window nearby.

You've peaked my interest to read more about this. Would you please site what article, book or paper this information came from. Thanks.

[jarich]

You've peaked my interest to read more about this. Would you please site what article, book or paper this information came from. Thanks.

Hey Steve,

No problem, glad to help. As for the articles I was talking to specifically geared towards Thamnophis species, start with these two:

Jacobs, GH et al (1992) Jrnl Comp Phys A, 170:6, 701-707

Sillman et al (1997) Jrnl Comp Phys A, 181:2, 89-101

Sillman and the rest were the same team that did the study on ball pythons a couple years later I think.