Black light question

[tryme]

This has prob been asked ALOT before but I can't find it any where. Can scorps actually see black lights and does it "stress" them in any way? It's cool to view them under it!

 

[signinsimple]

Some people say yes, they can see it. Some say no. All agree that it can harm the scorp to be under blacklight for extended periods of time. I've never noticed any behavioral differences between the scorp under blacklight, and under infrared light. Every scorp I have ever had ignored the blacklight and went on doing whatever it was doing before I turned it on.

 

[deserthairy]

Here's a quote from a post that pandinus made the other day.
"it has a tendency to errode away at their cuticle, which eventually causes them to lose their ability to glow, as well as effectively blinding the little eyesight they have left. the reason you dont keep a scorpion under a uv light for extended periods is the same reason you dont hang out in a tanning bed for extended periods. the same UV waves and similar problems."

But that doesn't really answer you question of seeing or stress, but bad regardless!
If 10 mins. a day is not too bad, I wonder how it would be to have the light come on for a few seconds, every so often. Like maybe 5 secs., every 15mins., just to see where they are at, from across the room.

 

[tryme]

Ok great. I wont over do it just wondered thats all

 

[broevil]

I do it every so often, just because its freakin awesome..I took a bunch of pics too..People find it fascinating

 

[skips]

I dont think it would cause them stress. Anybody catching bugs, say for research, uses black lights at night to spot the bugs because it illuminates them and they dont really process that they're being seen. whether it's because they cant see it, or they just dont process it as dangerous is a subject of contention.

Im not really sure if intermittent exposure to a black light would hurt them. with humans we have melanins to catch the radiation. Black people are black because they're more recently from africa than the rest of us and so require more melanin to catch the radiation. Plus, we shed constantly and renew all of our skin frequently, whereas scorpions only molt very infrequently. It's a good question.

 

[Widowman10]

Can scorps actually see black lights and does it "stress" them in any way?

i don't think it stresses them, but i have noticed with some species, that they will start moving around, seemingly trying to get away from it. i can't attribute this to anything else but the light, as they will sit still forever until the light hits them. they have to notice it. no other explanation time and time again. all of that is IME.

 

[pandinus]

this was just covered in a recent thread less than a week ago, i think it was called a stupid question about lighting. not trying to sound like an old crotchety man or anything but you really should try the search function tryme. it works better than you think.


John

 

[tryme]

You end up with 100 Threads skimmg and scamming through.

I belive as i've labled this thread ALOT better then that other thread it will be easier for people to find and get a direct answer for.

 

[deserthairy]

I always end up learning more, looking through alot of diff. threads. One thing leads to another. LOL.

 

[pandinus]

well then i'll say that scorpions should only be exposed to blacklights for short periods of time for viewing interest. prolonged exposure to UV lights causes the cuticle around the scorpions body to degrade, which will make the scorpion lose its glow, as well as causing blindness and other health problems. leaving a blacklight on a scorpion is similar to a person lying in a tanning bed. therefore they should only be used to view the scorpion. also, the ability of the scorpion to actually see the UV light depends a fair amount on the wavelength of the UV rays, true UV light is not visible, but most blacklights use a wavelength that also has high amounts of purple light as well. there are wavelengths of UV that scorpions can see, and that do visbly disturb their normal behaviors and cause them to hide.



John

 

[tryme]

Thanks for the reply. I do use the search but it is alot easier to get a direct answer by starting a new thread. I don't see the problem in starting new threads any way, it's what were here for right? to ask questions and learn.

In the future I wont submit alot of threads then just to make things easier on you guys.

 

[signinsimple]

this was just covered in a recent thread less than a week ago, i think it was called a stupid question about lighting. not trying to sound like an old crotchety man or anything but you really should try the search function tryme. it works better than you think.

John

The main subject of that thread was infrared light, not UV light, so it would be easy to miss that, even with the search function...

And not for nothing, but if every person searched every question and read all the results of the search before posting a question, you'd probably barely see any new names posting anything. I'm a fan of the search, but me thinks I see people reprimanded for not using it a bit too much. Especially when they explicitly say they couldn't find the info (implying that they did try using the search)

 

[Krissrock]

interesting that it's not good for them...but you could go to store or pet shows and find sellers with blacklights sitting over all their scorps, basically trying to raise the "look at that" factor for ppl who haven't seen it before.

 

[~Abyss~]

they also put white sand with black emps to make them stand out :{

 

[signinsimple]

I can understand having blacklights at a show to sell scorpions. I would hope that they turn them off when no one is looking or at least give them like 1 minute on 5 minutes off or something. The white sand is unfortunate. I'll never understand how someone could sell a living thing and know/care nothing about it.

 

[RoachGirlRen]

I'm less concerned with if the scorpions can see the UV than I am with the fact that UV radiation is notorious for its mutagenic effects on DNA. UV is routinely used to sterilize objects as at a close range and high (though not as high as you'd think) intensity, it will cause pyrimidine dimers to form in such great quantities that the cell's natural defenses can not fix the damaged DNA before cell death occurs. Prolonged exposure, particularly as close to the animal as the average hood on a tank would be, could potentially cause damage. Even if it is not strong enough to cause genetic mutations in the scorpion, it probably WILL kill off the native flora on the surface of its exoskeleton, which as we know in other species including humans leaves ample space for opportunistic and pathogenic organisms to grow. Not a good idea IMO regardless of if the scorps can see it or not.

 

[Galapoheros]

Yeah, ..what Roachgirlren said, haha. I was trying to figure out a way to say something like that but I couldn't have said it better than the way you said it. I've noticed my scorps back away from the BL. To see how consistently they reacted to my blacklight and tried to move away, yesterday I shined my blacklight on several scorps after I read this post. I've got over 50 young Parabuthus in a closet. I turned the light off and pointed my blacklight flashlight at them one at a time, I stopped at 30. After approx 1 second, each one of them curled up a little and started trying to find a place to hide. Other species I have didn't react as fast. The Hadogenes reacted pretty fast though. Anyway, I guess the topic's been pretty hammered.

 

[tryme]

My desert hairy seems to react to it as well.

 

[Krissrock]

The white sand is unfortunate. I'll never understand how someone could sell a living thing and know/care nothing about it.

educate me - what's up with white sand?