UV and beardies (in wild)

kingofnobbys

BD.org Sicko
This is a useful chart to use as a guide to providing adequate UV for you pet beardie .

http://www.uvguide.co.uk/uvinnature.htm

Note : for those who do not know what the range of central bearded dragons are , Alice Springs is part of their natural range and this area is known for extreme UV IN SUMMER , and very long periods of drought that regularly last several years , even over a decade is common. See http://pogopogona.com/bearded-dragon-facts/where-do-bearded-dragons-come-from , and see
http://bamboozoo.weebly.com/art-bearded-dragons-natural-environment.html for climate in their natural range.

Hope I have helped by providing the above.
 

AHBD

BD.org Sicko
Yes, this is very interesting and very in depth info about uvb requirements + benefits. I've used both MVB bulbs as well as flourescent tube for uvb and I find that as long as it's not too hot [ placement + distance are important ] then my dragons do hang out under the MVB. I've also kept beardies outside in open top as well as screened enclosures. Their colors really pop when exposed to natural sunlight, and even an hour a day makes a huge difference.

Thanks for the info, great stuff. :)
 

CooperDragon

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Thanks for sharing! To add to this, here are some UVI readings (average over several days) I took in the hills around Adelaide last November. It gives a rough idea of exposure in late spring in the southern region of their habitat. The morning and late afternoon basking habits are what lead me to believe a good "average" basking area should be in the 3-6 UVI range, given a proper gradient across the tank of course.

76248-3462926163.jpg
 

kingofnobbys

BD.org Sicko
Original Poster
CooperDragon":1mqqxrus said:
Thanks for sharing! To add to this, here are some UVI readings (average over several days) I took in the hills around Adelaide last November. It gives a rough idea of exposure in late spring in the southern region of their habitat. The morning and late afternoon basking habits are what lead me to believe a good "average" basking area should be in the 3-6 UVI range, given a proper gradient across the tank of course.

76248-3462926163.jpg
Thanking you - interesting and useful.

BTW for those who don't know the connection between UVI and W/m^2 flux :
Convert UVI to W/m² Eeff by dividing by 40.
.
 

CooperDragon

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Adding some more info I gathered recently. I wasn't able to gather as much data as I hoped to (I kept forgetting the Solarmeter in my camera bag) and I was outside of the natural range of central dragons. I did observe some other reptiles and noticed that in all cases they were hanging out in full or partial shade rather than directly in the sun. Here are the graphs for what they're worth.

Darwin NT 11/12/2019. Noticed a small skink sitting in partial shade at UVI 1.0 at 11:30am.
76248-8483307375.jpg

Perth WA & Rottnest Island 11/19/2019. Weather became overcast during the middle of the day causing a reading dip.
76248-7535523711.jpg

Brisbane QLD 11/22/2019. Only managed readings during the afternoon. Noted several Eastern Water Dragons basking in partial sunlight (2.3 UVI) at 3pm.
76248-1758548315.jpg
 

Claudiusx

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Awesome! Thanks for doing that and sharing Liam :D

Interesting the highest reading was past noon.

I'm glad you were able to take measurements from partial shade too. A good lesson on how even when in extremely high uvi out in the open, partial shade can still be decently low.

....you know you're a beardie addict when.....
:laughing6:

-Brandon
 

CooperDragon

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I noticed that in my earlier readings from Adelaide too. The highest UVB readings occur around 1pm and drop steadily after about 2 or so. One of these days I'll have the chance to go into central dragon territory and really get some good data. I want to be able to do some observation if I can find them along with getting some readings. Sounds like a full time job to me :lol:
 

Claudiusx

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A full time job I'd be lining up to do haha. If you need an intern, just shoot me a message lol :D

-Brandon
 

kingofnobbys

BD.org Sicko
Original Poster
CooperDragon":88i7durc said:
I noticed that in my earlier readings from Adelaide too. The highest UVB readings occur around 1pm and drop steadily after about 2 or so. One of these days I'll have the chance to go into central dragon territory and really get some good data. I want to be able to do some observation if I can find them along with getting some readings. Sounds like a full time job to me :lol:
Daylight savings in effect in "some" of Australia. This will explain the shift by 1 hour later in these states.
Also sun is not usually directly on "the meridian" at noon. ie at my location today the sun crossed the N-S meridian at 11:42am ( daylight saving time ) , too bad it was impossible to see it.

Likely the lizards you were seeing hanging out in shady spots were actually looking to escape from direct solar heating rather than UV.

To this study correctly should be monitoring UV , temperature (air and ground surface in direct sun and in shade).

So darned smokey and dust-stormy here that it's worthless my making any UV measurements in my location at this time. Been so dark here that we've had to turn the lights on during the day. And visibility has been cut to under 2 km (today) , an improvement on yesterday when I couldn't see stuff only 500m away.
 

CooperDragon

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The time zones were very odd there. Having Brisbane and Sydney on different times didn't make much sense at all. Adding a temperature component (surface and ambient) would certainly be beneficial to these tests and it is certainly possible they were seeking cooler temps (in addition to or independently of UV exposure). One of these days I'll return with this being the focus of the trip and try for more thorough data. One takeaway that is solid is that the UV exposure ramps up, peaks, then ramps down. I wish we could do that with our UVB lighting to better mimic this (I've said this in the past too).
 

Claudiusx

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kingofnobbys":jbzwrmhk said:
Note 38 degC and the dragons are seeking shady spots.
But their body surface temp was 41.
And of course we dont know if they were seeking the shade for the uv protection or the cooler temps. Or both.

Anyways, body temp of 41c agrees with the study I posted awhile back too. :)

Another interesting thing to point out about the video - and everyone who has a 6.5 knows, small differences in placement can have a huge effect on UV exposure. You saw at first that in the sparse shade of the bush, the uvi was around 5. But him simply getting it a few inches closer into the shade quickly dropped it into the 2 range. It's too bad they didnt start the recording sooner to show exactly where the dragon was hanging out before they spooked him.

However I agree, would be cool for him to show more videos and data like this :)

-Brandon
 

CooperDragon

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The note about them getting warm and then stopping is right along the lines of what I observe with Darwin. I'd love another shot at going out there to get more data one of these days.
 

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