Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am under the impression that reptiles and birds see more towards the blue end of the light spectrum, while nocturnal creatures see more towards the red end. With nocturnal frogs I would have guessed they would see towards the red end. So I originally bought them a blue heating lamp. They hated it and hid under plants any time it was on. I bought them a red lamp and they ignore it and thier eyes are fully dialated when it is on. Don't you need to be sensitive to longer waves of light to have superhuman night vision? Do frogs accomplish this some other way? Is their night vision no better, or even worse, than humans? Most probably don't care, but I'm really curious. I have asian golden four-lined foam treefrogs (or whatever they're called), but I've found that red eyed treefrogs and American green and barking treefrogs all prefer red to blue. American Grays seem to care the least.

At least some anurans have been shown to be able to see into the blue end of the spectrum which makes sense given that many insects have reflective patterns in the blue end of the spectrum which can help the frog determine the edibility of a food item...

Ed

That's interesting, I hadn't considered that. All animals have a default tendency to see towards blue compared to us. It's a leftover from our ocean dwelling ancestors. Long wavelengths of light are quickly filtered out in water. That's why reptiles and birds tend to see shorter wavelengths. They haven't evolved away from it yet. So if seeing blues is a survival advantage, an animal can easily keep it as opposed to going through evolutionary processes to do something else.
It just seems odd that frogs are blind to the kind of light most abundant to them. Are anurans a fairly new offshoot? Is there a trade off that prevents frogs from retaining ultraviolet vision AND developing infrared?
Thanks for your comments Ed. I'm not sure this thread even belongs in this forum. If you don't feel like continuing this conversation I'll take no offense.

This is very interesting to me. It is also helpful to know that the greys don't care since that's what I have. I don't have a basking light set up because it is all so confusing to figure out which light. I have a regular lamp that is warm right next to the glass. One of them sits very closely to it and the other one always stays under the plants. I moved it today to see if that is why the one stays in that area or if it is because she (I guess it's a she?) sits at the base of a plant that she likes.

I suppose I need a basking light but don't know which color/type/size or how long to leave it on at a time or anything else.

I am slowly learning all I can learn about this wonderful creatures because I have become very attached to mine!

Thanks for the informative thread!
Diane