Colour Development Sun Vs Artificial Lighting

[keen4kritters]

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has done a controlled test on Artificial vs Natural lighting? Previously I raised my hatchlings under artificial light and had maybe 10-20% of the clutch be quite bright and colourful. This year however I'm raising all my hatchlings under natural sunlight and most/all of the are (in my opinion) really brightly coloured. I know Rick Walker does his beardies outside and he consistently has many bright red beardies. I know genetics plays a big role but I wonder how much environmental conditions play out in developing colours? If anyone has done any comparative tests I'd love to hear about them.

 

[WeirdzandBeardz]

Not necessarily colour related, but I have noticed changes in hatchlings related to being rared on natural light. I've never done any controlled study on it, but I have noticed from an informal split clutch arrangement that hatchlings raised under more natural light and fed a more varied diet had significantly different growth rates! Obviously there were a number of other factors that could have confounded it (cage density, dominance, nutrition, etc), however it did seem like quite the interesting occurrence and fully supportive of a more natural keeping style.

On the theoretical side of things, I thing it is quite possible that the hatchling lighting environment would influence colour. There's a plethora of literature associated around ontogenic development and how it induces plastic changes in adult phenotypes (for instance, hatchling thermal environment can influence adults thermal preferences or a study the Shine Lab did where they showed chameleons reared with siblings were more sociable and brightly coloured then ones reared independently). It makes sense that if you were exposed to a better quality natural light you could adjust the pigmentation in your skin accordingly. Just my two cents!