- Thaedion wrote:
- I've seen this Question a hundred times and without in depth research I would conclude that UV is harmful, for the simple fact that UV is damaging to humans.
I concur with you completely. Again, the smaller the wavelength, the higher the frequency, the more energy imparted (standing within a couple feet a 1Mhz transmitter antenna running at 15 watts? Fine; try the same near a 10.525 Ghz transmitter, and let me know how your eyes feel afterwards -- the proteins there are usually the first to denature, or so I'm told -- and the same holds true for light: 35 Watts of an 808nm IR laser, while nothing to scoff at, can't compete with the same wattage of a UV CO2 steel-cutting laser, everything else being equal, the latter packs more punch
But I digress: while I don't think I documented this on my site (but I will), a few years back (circa 2002-2004) I did an experiment on an (otherwise) healthy offshoot colony of AZ Bark Scorps where I left them exposed to "Standard" blacklighting (don't recall the precise lumens/foot-candles/saturation, but with a stunning lack of scientific precision, I'll simply add it was two (2) 18W fl. blacklight bulbs -- not High Intensity ones, just regular store-bought ones, but brand new) which I left on 24/7 atop a 5.5g enclosure. While they weren't near direct sunlight (of course), their "regular" day/night lighting cycle was present, and all other conditions (temps/rH/feeding/etcetera) were kept equal with all the other colonies.
At the end of the period, they
ALL had VERY pronounced melanization/blackening on the cuticle, but *only* around the joints (and not any on the integument on either side, which *I* thought would have been most pervious to it); again, the blackening wasn't in the joints themselves, just on the cuticle. Of course, the integument-area may have been/probably did sustain UV damage, just nothing grossly visible.
Fast-forward a year, and most of them were prematurely dead (I've seen enough Barks die from old age, and know what it looks like...And perishing from intraspecific cannibalism is, well, kinda obvious; neither was the case). Within another 1.5 years (total time from start: 2.5 years), all of those from the original exposure period were dead (although their offspring, who were NOT exposed 24/7 to even that weak UV/Blacklighting showed
no ill-effects, and were eventually, a year or so further down the road, re-integrated into another colony setup I had at the time, after I saw no evidence of degraded health in them).
In brief, this isn't to scare people away from "showing off" their scorps with blacklights and the like -- far from it (nothing cooler than sitting in one's study w/everything off but some blacklighting while being surrounded by a few thousand scorpions -- ideally all of them safely enclosed
) -- just note that prolonged exposure isn't a good idea, or at least not recommended. IOW, a few hours of weak UV is probably not enough to do them much harm (hey, they're *your* cataracts -- ehr, I mean, eyes), but don't leave 'em on all night long, I guess.
HTH,
~JMB
Same sort of thing.
