UV light is widely used by bug-ologists to find scorpions; this works really
well because they are weirdly phosphorescent under UV light. A brief chat I had
with a bug fan pal of mine about wether UV harms their vision concluded that as
they seem to show no ill effects and vision is probably not their primary sense
anyway nobody seemed to think it an issue. It is a really amazing experience to
go for a night walk with one of those UV lamps, especially in Mulga or sand
country in the outback- scorpions are more common and diverse than you might
realise!
Mycologists and lichenologists use UV light to locate and identify certain
species- some lichens look awesome by UV. Some interesting features on other
things can be seen only under UV light- I'm told some bird plumages, reptiles
and even a few flowers can show markings which otherwise are hard to see or
invisible. Maybe someone out there has tried this and can verify?
Good portable UV lights can be sourced from mining and fossicking supply shops-
they are handy for locating certain minerals too apparently.
I'd be surprised if UV light on retinas generally didn't have some kind of
effect but compared to the UV doses we recieve by day I suspect its minor- for
us humans at least. Again, the subject seems to be a black hole in the research
literature. I hope eager young scientists are out there taking notes for
potential PhD topics!
I presume the comment about questions over spotlighting effects on birds eyes
being comparable to debating pinhead angel populations was alluding to the
difficulty in assessing such effects rather than the fictional nature of them?
Clearly we'll never know what its like to see the world as birds do, but I
wouldn't have thought teasing out cause and effect with regards damage to birds
vision from spotlighting would be impossible. (but then I'm no scientist...)
Mark Carter
ps. I'm not offended over the name mix-up- Can't speak for Mike though!
==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
=============================
|
