Lighting

This article is currently unorganized snippets and placeholders and could use some editing.

Sugar glider pupils open very wide in the dark. Just like you, their eyes do not respond to UV light, therefore their pupils will not close with UV.

You can use a low wattage bulb with a red gel covering it. Red LED works pretty good but I recommend a diffuser of sorts as LED's are intense. You should probably use a diffuser or reflector of sorts so you can never see the bulb directly.

Fluorescent bulbs do emit ultraviolet energy which is bad for long term glider eye health, so stay away from tubes and spirals.

Night creatures are generally not bothered by red light. Supposedly they do not have the cones to see red, just blues and greens, making them dichromatic. They could even possibly be monochromatic or colorblind but we do not know. They could have rods only in their huge eyes which could account for how easily they are startled by movement near or far because lack of cones causes a bad sense of spatial acuity.

And remember to always keep the 120V cord out of chewing reach of the animals.

You might try to use a cheapo PAR can or some type of lamp holder with a gel over it and point it at the ceiling to reflect the light down. The ceiling will soften the bulb a lot and the light can fill your whole room, not just the cages. You can find RED GEL on Ebay.

Again, keep in mind that red light will not close the iris of a sugar glider, therefore their eye is being bombarded with the light they cannot see. If that light contains UV, their wide open eyes will be effected over time and they can lose their sight, get tumors or such. So do not use fluorescent light sources with a red filter. If you dont filter the light from a tube, their iris will narrow and their eyes will be more protected from the light, so normal room lighting is ok to be fluorescent, just dont filter it. Use an incandescent filament type of bulb for cage lighting.

Dont use a blacklight of any make, especially a tube. Blacklights are notorius for emitting high doses of UV. That is what charges things to glow. UV/soft red is what the blacklight coating is designed to pass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_light

Black lights will hurt your sugar gliders wide open eyes much more than the sun does to your closed irises. Why do you think sun glasses with UVB/UVA protection are so important for us?

Last Edited March 11, 2012

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Lighting

This article is currently unorganized snippets and placeholders and could use some editing.

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Last Edited March 11, 2012