UVB lighting??

[Herpvet]

Hi sorry, just to add - if you really want to do it properly (and maybe provide useful data for general use), getting serial radiographs of your frogs would be the best (practical) way to assess bony density.

Bruce.

[John]

Bruce, I think at best that your experiment is of secondary importance (and it would take a while to get definitive results). In my opinion, the way to study this would be to monitor levels of vitamin D production in frogs exposed to UV light and a control group that is not exposed to UV light. I would think the results would be pretty conclusive and I wonder why no one has bothered to do this (or maybe they have...?).

[Herpvet]

Bruce, I think at best that your experiment is of secondary importance (and it would take a while to get definitive results). In my opinion, the way to study this would be to monitor levels of vitamin D production in frogs exposed to UV light and a control group that is not exposed to UV light. I would think the results would be pretty conclusive and I wonder why no one has bothered to do this (or maybe they have...?).

Hi John,

True, that would also be very useful - not done as far as I am aware (would love to get more details of this conference mentioned on the caudata.org discussion, but no luck so far)! But that's why I said best (practical) way - vitamin D3 monitoring requires serial blood samples (not sure of minimum volume required, but I suspect not insignificant for even a white's), with attendant difficulties and risks (I personally wouldn't consider the alternative acceptable, multiple frogs with sacrificing some/all for liver D3 levels or similar).

Just to widen it slightly, I also feel the importance of uv-A gets left out of these discussions (I know the topic title is uv-b, but..). Important stimulator of activity in many species, and may be beneficial even in amphibians.

Bruce.

[1beataway]

Even after Kurt telling me that frogs don't need UV lights, I find it so hard to tell my customers that they don't need to get UV lights for their new frogs.

Personally, I enjoy how every night when I turn my White's light off, they immediately wake up and go into action. I'm not sure how this would be different if they had no light.

[Kurt]

Basically it would be the same. Most of my frogs do not have over head lights and they still sleep during, awakening only after the lights are out.

[John]

The majority of tree frogs in captivity are nocturnal. They don't get exposed to sunlight anyhow. This includes White's Tree Frogs. If you think just because your tree frog sleeps on a branch that receives light during the day that they do that in the wild, all the tree frogs would be dead from dessication. Anyone who has done any field work with nocturnal tree frogs can tell you that they are extremely difficult to find during the day and one place you don't look is branches exposed to sunlight.

[1beataway]

I guess what you two say makes sense. I think it's partly because the importance of UV lights for all reptiles and amphibians was one of the "basics" I learned at my job, and it's a little hard to completely forget that rule. My White's will still get the light though, for the plants if nothing else.

Field work with frogs sounds like so much fun, btw.