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But they DO like pizza!
Tortoise Mythbusters!
- Thread starter Madkins007
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- Mar 9, 2009
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Tom said:
Awesome pics Tom! Hah that Sulcata looks like it is livin the life!
I knew I had seen a sulcata swimming!!!! awsome pics but.... i wonder if different specimens would have different densities like people, some people float some sink....this Sulcata looks like a floater....I am tempted to try mine and see if he is a floater or sinker 
I dont think a specific tort could swim if he was a sinker?
I dont think a specific tort could swim if he was a sinker?
emysemys said:
I think the only thing you can say for certain is that it appears that reptile skin is waterproof with regards to water entering the skin. Many reports, including the book mentioned, state that water vapor loss can happen through the skin- but those are MUCH smaller molecules-that is how Gore-Tex works.
Surrounding a tort with water or water and helpful stuff may still have a lot of benefits, although I personally think they are more like the idea of dipping your finger in food and touching it to a baby's lips than the idea that goodness is passing through the skin.
emysemys said:
Vitamin A could very well be acting on the eyes in this case, b/c the eyes and eyelids are a permeable membrane and could be adsorbing the Vitamin A, which is acting almost like and opthalmic Vit A drop. If it were me, I'd continue to dose these guys with food that has a higher than normal amount of grated or cooked sweet potato and supplement twice a week with a vitamin supplement that has preformed Vitamin A for a couple of months to help thier recovery. Yvonee, have you ever considered looking for an eye wash that has some vit A in it to use? I am not sure that is available, but you cold probably get a vet to help you calculate a safe dosage to mix in some saline and use to flush the eyes. I guess if what you are doing works, there is no need, but maybe I at least helped with an explanation as to why this works for you.
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my redfoots have a swim once a week to help them keep up on the exercise. they always walk into the deeper water which makes me think they enjoy it
Let's take a look.biglove4bigtorts said:Vitamin A could very well be acting on the eyes in this case, b/c the eyes and eyelids are a permeable membrane and could be adsorbing the Vitamin A, which is acting almost like and opthalmic Vit A drop. If it were me, I'd continue to dose these guys with food that has a higher than normal amount of grated or cooked sweet potato and supplement twice a week with a vitamin supplement that has preformed Vitamin A for a couple of months to help thier recovery. Yvonee, have you ever considered looking for an eye wash that has some vit A in it to use? I am not sure that is available, but you cold probably get a vet to help you calculate a safe dosage to mix in some saline and use to flush the eyes. I guess if what you are doing works, there is no need, but maybe I at least helped with an explanation as to why this works for you.
Myth: "Turtles and tortoises can absorb medications, specifically vitamin A, through the eyes."
Status: QUESTIONABLE
I checked Dr. Mader's book 'Reptile Medicine and Surgery' and there is no suggestion to use the eyes as a method for administering medications or vitamins.
While the eye is a permeable membrane, you have to wonder how efficiently it would conduct the vitamins or medications to the blood vessels, and if the vessels there would effectively absorb enough to have an effect. (Some illicit drugs are administered this way by some users, but these are psycho-active drugs that are designed to be easily absorbed and work very differently.)
There does not seem to be a lot of clinical support for vitamin A eyedrops sold in pet stores. That is, they do not seem to change the vitamin A levels in the blood- although they do seem anecdotally to help some eye problems- possibly by washing or lubricating the eye.
One interesting point that I know Yvonne already knows- swollen eyes in Box Turtles is often a Vitamin A problem, but swollen eyes in other species is usually something else! Boxies are very sensitive to vitamin A levels in their blood, and most other species are much more forgiving. Vitamin A is also a fat-soluble vitamin which means that if you offer too much vitamin A to the Boxie, it causes OTHER problems! What fun!
(Red-ear Sliders, etc. often have swollen eyes, but that is more likely due to poor water conditions or stress. Dr. Mader suggests having blood tests done before starting any vitamin A therapies for most species.)
I listed this as QUESTIONABLE since I cannot find clinical proof that it does not work, but I can also not find any clinical evidence that it does.
Re: baby food soak...
Perhaps while sitting there they are inadvertently drinking just a bit so they're getting the vitamins in as if they were eating? I've only done a baby food soak a couple of times out of desperation but the tortoise definitely perked right up.
~Shauna
Perhaps while sitting there they are inadvertently drinking just a bit so they're getting the vitamins in as if they were eating? I've only done a baby food soak a couple of times out of desperation but the tortoise definitely perked right up.
~Shauna
I do believe that is at least partially true, Shauna. I have also tossed some greens in the water while they were soaking, that way they get mouthfuls of the water/vitamins/baby food while they are taking bites of the greens.
Today's myth:
"Tortoise eyes are like humans, so light is light, right?"
BUSTED!
Human eyes have three kinds of cone cells in them to see color with (one each triggered by colors around yellow, green, and violet).
Reptiles have 4 kinds of cones. We do not know for sure, but probably the triggering is shifted so they trigger at something like yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue, and near ultraviolet (UVA).
Lights humans surround themselves with are designed to look right to their eyes- colors are best in sunlight or incandescent light, look a little washed out in cool white fluorescents, oddly dark under street lights, etc.
Raising a reptile under a typical human light with little UVA in it would be like looking at stuff with the red/violet colors muted or shifted to black to a human.
Proper lighting and color helps with the physical development of the eye, probably helps with mate selection and breeding, and probably affects eating. Under light with no UVA, green food probably looks yellower, and bright red strawberries probably look a bit black.
Using limited color lighting would make things worse. Common fluorescents are either 'cool' or 'warm white'- basically either yellow or blue. Plant lights are green/blue and maybe red. This has got to make even the tastiest foods look... wrong. (Ever seen good red meat or bright red strawberries under a green bulb?)
They also probably use the UVA to help guide them to or away from the sun as they thermoregulate in the wild.
The ideal reptile light would offer a balanced range of a little infrared, each of the colors of the rainbow, and some UVA and UVA. We would moderate the intensity and duration for different species, but all species of reptiles have the same basic eye structure so need all wavelengths.
Few bulbs do it all at once. For example, UV mercury vapor bulbs hit the blue, purple, and UV ranges hard, but little IR, red, yellow, or orange.
One example of a working combination would be to combine a UVB fluorescent bulb (yellows, greens, UVA, UVB) and a plant bulb with the red light features (red, green, blue, violet).
(Note, I am working on a chart for what bulbs do what so you can more easily find a combination that works for you. I'll post it at the Tortoise Library under Lighting as I work on it. See the link in the sig below.)
(One good source for this is http://www.reptileuvinfo.com/docs/exotic-vet-vol9-3.pdf )
"Tortoise eyes are like humans, so light is light, right?"
BUSTED!
Human eyes have three kinds of cone cells in them to see color with (one each triggered by colors around yellow, green, and violet).
Reptiles have 4 kinds of cones. We do not know for sure, but probably the triggering is shifted so they trigger at something like yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue, and near ultraviolet (UVA).
Lights humans surround themselves with are designed to look right to their eyes- colors are best in sunlight or incandescent light, look a little washed out in cool white fluorescents, oddly dark under street lights, etc.
Raising a reptile under a typical human light with little UVA in it would be like looking at stuff with the red/violet colors muted or shifted to black to a human.
Proper lighting and color helps with the physical development of the eye, probably helps with mate selection and breeding, and probably affects eating. Under light with no UVA, green food probably looks yellower, and bright red strawberries probably look a bit black.
Using limited color lighting would make things worse. Common fluorescents are either 'cool' or 'warm white'- basically either yellow or blue. Plant lights are green/blue and maybe red. This has got to make even the tastiest foods look... wrong. (Ever seen good red meat or bright red strawberries under a green bulb?)
They also probably use the UVA to help guide them to or away from the sun as they thermoregulate in the wild.
The ideal reptile light would offer a balanced range of a little infrared, each of the colors of the rainbow, and some UVA and UVA. We would moderate the intensity and duration for different species, but all species of reptiles have the same basic eye structure so need all wavelengths.
Few bulbs do it all at once. For example, UV mercury vapor bulbs hit the blue, purple, and UV ranges hard, but little IR, red, yellow, or orange.
One example of a working combination would be to combine a UVB fluorescent bulb (yellows, greens, UVA, UVB) and a plant bulb with the red light features (red, green, blue, violet).
(Note, I am working on a chart for what bulbs do what so you can more easily find a combination that works for you. I'll post it at the Tortoise Library under Lighting as I work on it. See the link in the sig below.)
(One good source for this is http://www.reptileuvinfo.com/docs/exotic-vet-vol9-3.pdf )
I have been thinking about the baby food soak and here is my thought. It is true that water does not penetrate the skin, but somethings have smaller molecules and do penetrate the skin. We know that vitamin A is used in skin care and does wonders for skin ( of humans anyway). So maybe the vitamin A in the baby food is penetrating the turtle skin.
Madkins, I'd love to see that chart when you have it ready.
Mark, don't forget the role of the pineal gland (and 'third eye') in photodetection, circadian rhythm, etc. Varying spectral components have a significant impact on seasonal, and thus, behavioral activity (e.g. hormone production related to the reproductive cycle, timing of feeding increases/decreases, brumation/hibernation, etc.).
HLogic said:
LOL! The linked article hits the pineal gland hard. I left most of that stuff off to keep the thing from getting even wordier than usual for one of my posts!
Bottom line- UV light = good. No UV = bad (or at least not so good).
Now I want to try to find some research on reptilian biorhythms- should we be moderating the light during the day more realistically to improve feeding, breeding, etc. when indoors?
The Hearing and Seeing bits I find interesting. I do have some experience there, no expert though. As far as audio reproduction goes, by and large walkie talkies and tvs (unless super high dollar) suck. Just like telephones they are designed to primarily only pass on the narrow band of audio that humans hear best. (around 1k hz is what comes to mind, might be off though). Anything above or below is severely attenuated. I believe dogs are tuned to a higher frequency AND more sensitive. That walkie talkie will sound severely distorted to them. Differentiating human commands is a considerably higher order operation than the instinctive response to another dog barking in the distance. Even with our limited hearing humans can perceive very low levels of distortion, ie that stereo that just doesn't sound right, but you can't put your finger on why. Chances are Tom's dogs could not recognize his voice at all through that walkie talkie, and they're trained to respond to him and him alone. I imagine the same will apply with a common tape recorder for torts, but a truly top end hi fi might give some results.
I'm going to spend some time on that eye site article. It makes me glad I chose the light I did for Rocky. I can save you all alot of time and trouble (assuming you want true, full spectrum lighting). Old Fashioned (and getting hard to come by) t12 Daylight Deluxe (aka Chroma75), Coolwhite Deluxe, or Chroma 50 depending on the color temp you're going for. The Deluxe is important, it gives the extra extension in the high reds, uv area. Sometimes the deluxe isn't really a deluxe so I've discovered, the CRI has to be 90 or better, or it aint no deluxe. Don't bother with the t-8s, I haven't found a one yet that says its a deluxe that actually was. (except in some of the small sizes, they don't sell as fast, and many are quite old stock).
I discovered this while working on my planted fish tanks. It really got frustrating after a while, as I wanted to try and give true full spectrum lighting to them. Hard to do with modern "eco friendly" tubes. Modern tubes use "tri-phosphor" technology which means they output 3 narrow bands of intense color. Our minds somehow convert the three colors into all the different shades (kind of like RGB on your computer screen), but not as well as if they were looking at the same colors under natural sunlight. (thus the low CRI on modern tubes, Color Rendering Index).
The old fashioned tubes used Halo Phosphors, which output light across the whole light spectrum. It is centered around the green/yellows for optimum efficiency, which is what our eyes see best. The efficiency "trick" to tri-phosphors is that since those 3 narrow bands are so intense, our eyes percieve the light as really bright, even though it actually may be putting out less useful (to plants in my case) light energy than the old dim t12. I lost alot of plants before I learned this.
I'm so anal I actually built a simple spectroscope so I could check the spectral output on different lights. Didn't work so well for me, turns out I'm color blind to the high reds, but the wife can see them! poor woman had to endure sessions of ok, which ones brighter? ok what about this one? etc
If you can't find t-12 deluxe, you can do as well if not better with a regular t-12 halo phosphor tube augmented with a reveal incandescent or halogen. The reveals have a notch filter in them to subdue the oranges, which the standard halo phosphor tubes have an excess of.
sorry, probably too much again
I'm going to spend some time on that eye site article. It makes me glad I chose the light I did for Rocky. I can save you all alot of time and trouble (assuming you want true, full spectrum lighting). Old Fashioned (and getting hard to come by) t12 Daylight Deluxe (aka Chroma75), Coolwhite Deluxe, or Chroma 50 depending on the color temp you're going for. The Deluxe is important, it gives the extra extension in the high reds, uv area. Sometimes the deluxe isn't really a deluxe so I've discovered, the CRI has to be 90 or better, or it aint no deluxe. Don't bother with the t-8s, I haven't found a one yet that says its a deluxe that actually was. (except in some of the small sizes, they don't sell as fast, and many are quite old stock).
I discovered this while working on my planted fish tanks. It really got frustrating after a while, as I wanted to try and give true full spectrum lighting to them. Hard to do with modern "eco friendly" tubes. Modern tubes use "tri-phosphor" technology which means they output 3 narrow bands of intense color. Our minds somehow convert the three colors into all the different shades (kind of like RGB on your computer screen), but not as well as if they were looking at the same colors under natural sunlight. (thus the low CRI on modern tubes, Color Rendering Index).
The old fashioned tubes used Halo Phosphors, which output light across the whole light spectrum. It is centered around the green/yellows for optimum efficiency, which is what our eyes see best. The efficiency "trick" to tri-phosphors is that since those 3 narrow bands are so intense, our eyes percieve the light as really bright, even though it actually may be putting out less useful (to plants in my case) light energy than the old dim t12. I lost alot of plants before I learned this.
I'm so anal I actually built a simple spectroscope so I could check the spectral output on different lights. Didn't work so well for me, turns out I'm color blind to the high reds, but the wife can see them! poor woman had to endure sessions of ok, which ones brighter? ok what about this one? etc
If you can't find t-12 deluxe, you can do as well if not better with a regular t-12 halo phosphor tube augmented with a reveal incandescent or halogen. The reveals have a notch filter in them to subdue the oranges, which the standard halo phosphor tubes have an excess of.
sorry, probably too much again
Hey Mark...I do like the library so far...and I think it's only going to get better...CONGRATS! My opinion is that a CHE and the Powersun MVB (specifically) are the ONLY artificial sources a (scrub/desert-dwelling) tort would ever need during inclement weather + winter, of course! I know you feel that one lighting source can't be a 'cure-all' but the Powersun has to come close...Yes?!?!?
DeanS said:
I'm having a hard time finding the spectral response for the Powersun bulb, but that category is short in the green-blue-violet part of the spectrum. A cool-white fluorescent bulb or a halogen bulb would balance that out, or position it close to a window so the sun provides all the visible light.
Bizarre, isn't it? You can look at a whitish light and it looks white, but if you go to a paint store or makeup place, you can try different lights and see big differences, or if you photograph under different lights different colors turn out oddly, but our eyes work so well to make it all look normal.
By the way, if you have plants in the tort habitat, they would like the additional light wavelengths that the MVB is missing.
Madkins007 said:
That could explain in part my perpetual lack of ability to grow plants on my tort table...
I second that the library is looking great. I was on it just yesterday. Great Job. Thank you.
PeanutbuttER said:
I really appreciate that Dean and PeanutbuttER! I enjoy doing the research and writing, but it is just so much easier to write it once and then refer people instead of doing it over and over.
Anything you'd like to see added? (Other than a lot of photos. I am going to add some diagrams, etc., but want to keep it easy to open and navigate on mobile devices and such.)
Myth: animals are uncapable of showing emotion or reading emotions of other animals. They cannot feel nor think logically.
I would like to say that this one is totally busted.
When I first got Sonya and Boris, Sonya was so shy that she hid in her shell most of the time. Boris nudged her and she followed him everywhere.
When I tried to seperate Boris and Sonya (Boris tends to be a bit of a bully), Boris gets distressed and searches everywhere she normally hides. He even digs where she normally tunnels.
When Boris had free reign of the apartment and I went looking for him, calling his name, he came right to me, looked at me and walked away. Little snot!
Patches, my young calico cat, has befriended Boris and Sonya. They have accepted her into their "family." Boris has once almost accepted her offer to play with a toy mouse.
I would like to say that this one is totally busted.
When I first got Sonya and Boris, Sonya was so shy that she hid in her shell most of the time. Boris nudged her and she followed him everywhere.
When I tried to seperate Boris and Sonya (Boris tends to be a bit of a bully), Boris gets distressed and searches everywhere she normally hides. He even digs where she normally tunnels.
When Boris had free reign of the apartment and I went looking for him, calling his name, he came right to me, looked at me and walked away. Little snot!
Patches, my young calico cat, has befriended Boris and Sonya. They have accepted her into their "family." Boris has once almost accepted her offer to play with a toy mouse.
- Status
