What Can Bearded Dragons See? More Than You Think!

In every fantasy story dragons have great vision, since they need to be able to see their prey from a far distance. While we are not living in a fantasy story, our bearded dragons need to able to see their prey from a far distance as well. However, what can bearded dragons see? Do they have great vision?

The answer is that bearded dragons have great vision. Bearded dragons can see even more colors than humans and they can see objects in the far distance clearly.

That was the short answer. However, there is a lot more to know about a bearded dragon´s vision. For example, you should know why you need to know what bearded dragons can see and how far they can see. Do you know why your bearded dragon tilts its head when it sees you? Do you know what the third eye is?

Continue to read and find out!

Why It Is So Important To Know How Good A Bearded Dragon´s Vision Is

There is nothing I hate more than wasted time. That´s why I want to explain to you right from the start why it is so important for you to know what your bearded dragon is able to see.

I get tons of emails from bearded dragon owners who tell me that their bearded dragon is always turning black, showing a black beard or hiding the whole day. All those owners did not know what their bearded dragon is actually able to see.

They thought that a bearded dragon´s vision is not that good and would have never imagined that their bearded dragon is able to see a bird outside the window. They would not have imagined that their bearded dragon can see itself in a mirror on the other side of the room.

What I want to say with this is, you have to be aware that your bearded dragon can see everything in your reptile room as long as nothing prevents a direct visibility.

Knowing this will prevent stress in your bearded dragon. For example, as I said above, your bearded dragon can see a bird outside of the window. So if your bearded dragon turns black the whole day or shows a black beard the whole day, it could be that it sees something that might be scary.

A black coloring can have other reasons for sure, but most owners do not think about what their beardie is actually able to see.

That´s why it is so important to make sure that your bearded dragon has enough hides. That´s why it is important to have a couple of plants that can be used as hides and prevent direct visibility. Same thing with backgrounds for the terrarium.

I know that most people do not know which plants they can put into their bearded dragon tank. If you are one of those people, I have written an article for you Read this article about plants for a beardie tank, to learn which plants you can actually use and which plants also look amazing in your tank.

Can Bearded Dragons See Colors?

Actually bearded dragons can even see more colors than humans can. Bearded dragons are tetrachromatic which means that they have four color receptors. Humans have only three color receptors. They can see into higher wavelenghts, which humans are not able to do. Yes, they can see UV waves.

Knowing this is also very important, since it shows you how important the right UV light for your bearded dragon is. If you are not sure if you have the correct UV lights, read my article on beardie lighting. It shows you what you need.

Can Bearded Dragons See In The Dark?

While it would be cool if bearded dragon could see in the dark, they can´t. They do not have cat-like eyes that adjust perfectly in the dark so they can see everything perfectly fine even with a very weak light source.

In fact, a bearded dragons pupil is somewhat lazy, but I will come to that later.

Knowing that bearded dragons can´t see well in the dark is another important information. Every bearded dragon has a sleeping place. Most bearded dragons know exactly when it is time to go to bed, as long as you control your lights with a time switch and switch off the lights at the same time each and every day.

If you do not use a time switch and turn the lights on and off manually, this can irritate your bearded dragon. It irritates their biological clock and because of that they sometimes do not go to their sleeping place before the lights turn off.

This can result in your bearded dragon roaming around in the dark, unable to find a place to sleep. While this is not the end of the world it can be stressful for your bearded dragon since it does not feel safe sleeping in a spot that isn´t “safe”.

Many people even use multiple time switch off one light after the other to make it easier for the bearded dragon to know when it is time to go to sleep.

How Far Can Bearded Dragons See?

There is no clear answer to this. However, expect them to see as far as you can see. Bearded dragons are observing the whole day and I said above that they can definitely see everything in the reptile room as long as a direct visibility is possible.

You can test this – place your bearded dragon on one side of the room, go to the other side and show it a superworm. Your beardie will see it (and probably go crazy like all of the do, lol).

A relaxed bearded dragon eye is always focused on something far away. If you now offer some crickets or some greens right in front of your bearded dragon, the eyes will adjust and the pupil will become larger to see the “prey” clearly.

That´s the time when bearded dragon tilt their heads to have an easier time to focus what´s right in front of them. Birds show this behavior as well.

What You Should Know

Bearded dragons are mostly relying on their vision to process what is going on around them. That is why it is so important that you always make sure that your bearded dragon´s eyes are always healthy.

I also said in the beginning of this post that bearded dragons have a third eye. I explain this in a different article. You can read everything about a bearded dragon´s third eye here.

As you have seen, bearded dragons can see pretty well. They can mostly see as good as humans or even a little bit better. The only thing about their vision that is not that good is their depth perception. That explains why their aim is sometimes not that good and why they sometimes run into things.