haha!
yo bro trevally, where have u been? seems like u mia for a while also

i too have been pretty busy lately with work and family comitments.

looks like many brothers here also like that. well, at least good for the wild male fs... get some time to breed and hopefully got more fs in the future for whoever wishes to hunt the wonderful, captivating fs again.

recently i've been planting a few fs-suited plants in containers, hopefully this will form a base for some more fs cages i intend to build in my spare time.
Wild pepper leaves seems to be the most suitable.

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Added on June 9, 2010, 6:42 pmall semi-retired...haha!

today wanted to do a bit of hunt because had spare time but ended up sitting at home due to thunder storm...

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Jun 9 2010, 06:45 PM

usually kop/sup pow tend to be more matured spiders. And fs usually darkens as it gets more matured. so there maybe a link there. but certainly not always.
i have yet to see a white leg fs(newly moulted) being a kop pow.

a glimpse of a red thiania from hongkong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV0UyaTfUTI&feature=related

a couple more clips from the same guy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UcEuwaKq88&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuFlZfhTHBk&feature=related
(looks like a sub-adult male... the abdomen pattern looks very similar to the giant-bu given to me by viper)

once a fs turn adulthood, eg male have white face, the size of the fs seems to be quite fixed leow. In other words, a small adult male is like a short adult man, he cannot grow into a tall adult man.

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Added on June 17, 2010, 1:42 amnice. i think ur fs need more training.

btw, ur surprise reaction in the first clip is funny... just like how me or my friend would sometimes react when playing with our fs. haha!

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Jun 17 2010, 01:42 AM

hua, impressive arm length! wat size is he?

Viper,
Great work for doing some historical comparison of sizes!
But i do wonder wheather having a full stomach could affect the length measured. Royal looks pretty well fed in that pic, while some others like Titan had a much less filled abdomen.

Looks like Singapore is coming out with all the king kongs.

Mangrovejumper,
Once again, u have beautiful pics there. And again u smuggle a salticidae thousands of miles back to ur home. Was it a ferocious/glutton type like hyllus?
With its fury pedipalps, the spidey in ur pics bear some resemblance to hyllus genus. If it moves and turn sloooowly, then it would certainly be close.

Right now i am keeping a couple of hyllus and quite a few fs too. haha, i maybe quiet but still very much messing around with jumpers. When i get back my camera which i lent to my bro, i hope to share some nice pics too.

have u seen this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oRRBPdM6Wc
damn cool.

Ura,
Yea, help Royal to pass his genes down if u can. Wont be easy though to catch "virgin" females that can match his size.
What sort of container are u keeping ur Royal Highness?

at the moment i'm keeping a pair of hyllus semi.
Got them to mate 2 days ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_xodh0M_fg

Today was one of the most disheartening day for me. In the evening at about 6, i went looking for hyllus in a nearby park and unexpectedly found another hyllus male...large one too. i saw its head just jutting out of a dried leave attached to the underside of a green leaf, pretty close to the ground. but damn, its nest was situated in such a way that it was difficult to encircle it with a large plastic bag which i had due to the leaf branches. and the ground was filled with large leaf litter and also it was situated just beside a slope, with even deeper leaf litter below. it took me half an hour to slowly cut away the leaves blocking my view with scissors and when i tried to slowly put a large plastic bag beneath the nest, it jumped and i lost it in the leaf litter. it was 7.30pm then and i waited almost until dark and still tried to search the litter but in vain. i can attest that the hyllus Semicupreus male is the most difficult jumper i ever tried to find and catch.
All my gear and experience came to nil.

Finding itself is almost an imposibility. I found the one i'm having now by chance when i saw it walking up a lily leaf when i was going to my car at my workplace. other than that, i have only seen it only 3 other times.
1) once as a boy(while still in mps, primary school, i remember) on a tree trunk stump in my grandma's garden. i ran to the kitchen to get a bag, but came back and can't find it again.
2) caught one small one. the one that drank milk in one of my clips
3) i saw one hanging on a tread from a tree at my workplace carpark. a large one. but when it dropped to the ground, it very rapidly jumped towards a very thick hedge and dissappear into it. but because there were people walking up and down that place, sitting nearby, and i was wearing office wear, i didn't want to pursue it.

Catching it is very difficult because

1. it is highly sensitive, just a slight movement of its nest and i saw it gearing to pounch out.
There was no way i could have just cut the leave of its nest and just lift it up like wat we do for fs.
2. it is a master of eluding... going out of view or the other side of a leaf/branch rapidly whenever it sense a movement/shadow
3. its color makes it a master of camouflage among dried leaves/branches
4. it has a powerful jump and would jump consecutively till out of sight/reach(and probably jumping and quickly crawling under the leaf litter to other parts from where it landed)
5. it doesn't appear soon after it jumps into leaf litter, staying put of a long period of time probably due to its sensitive nature.

if only i have a bottle of water then, maybe it could have helped. Damn. otherwise we would be able to see a hyllus semicupreus male vs male square off.

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Aug 5 2010, 02:33 AM

try to take pics under outdoor light...will be better. ur pics here a bit dark leh..

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Added on August 7, 2010, 2:18 amhaha! i don't think Vortex will travel 400km to challenge ur Durian la...
Viper57 is from Kepong area, in malaysia. I think the closest kaki here to our new friend here is Viper88.

i have no idea actually. he is staying in another town from me. my hometown. besides i don't know him.
he is one of the younger ones from a murai fighting group. most of them quite senior, but every weekend without fail, sure got grouping and sure got murai fights. To them, any fight must involve $$, otherwise no point fighting, including fs. Maybe we got kaki here also got place bets but secretive ler...hehe. but its ok with me.
Anyway, i haven't been back to my hometown for quite a while now, so i have no idea of wat's happening there now. but if i have the time, i'll be happy to go check them out.

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Added on August 7, 2010, 2:32 amhalo faiz, u have a beautiful hyllus diardi female there! where are u from and where did u manage to find her?

yeah, u can feed ur jumping spider daily or minimum once every 2 days.
i find my hyllus semi will eat flies, small crickets and they seem to love moths.

Make sure u let them drink water EVERYDAY. U can use a spray to mist its enclosure.

And most importantly, make sure ants can't get to its enclosure.
In the beginning of keeping a jumping spider, even if u have ants around, the ants seems not bothered to disturb ur spider but as time goes by when dead insects accumulate in the spider's cage, there's where the danger will come, suddenly the ants start to get attracted to the dead insects and when they start to swarm the cage to try to carry off the dead insects, that's it... ur spider will also become their food. So take heed.

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Aug 7 2010, 02:33 AM

best way is to let it spar often. Viper88 is best at this.

no one knows for sure. u can be the first to experiment though...

wah...power root somemore...well basically u can try anything as long as it doesn't kill them.
great to see u have such enthusiasm for fs!

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Added on August 12, 2010, 12:28 amthis is Thianitara
http://salticidae.org/salticid/diagnost/th...ta/spect-ph.htm
i think u can catch them in FRIM too. Small spiders but very hand friendly.
yeah

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Added on August 12, 2010, 12:29 amwah, mr jong, nice clips and very nice comparison photos!

One thing i know about the mask jumper...it can jump really far...

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Aug 12 2010, 12:29 AM

i doubt so. the female looks very female to me. besides that head pattern is quite common.
i found that head pattern alone is not a very reliable way to determine a fs because
1. it can look different at different angles
2. it can change over time
3. many fs have similar head patterns

it is only be useful if it is sufficiently different between 2 fs that we want to fight. if you would to expose a fs to a large group of other fs, i think judging from head pattern alone, it would be very difficult to pick it out. usually we would rely on other characteristics too, like abdomen size, overall size, overall lightness darkness etc

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Aug 16 2010, 01:19 AM

i think viper57 means 2 fs fighting and grinding each other's teeth? Viper57, where did u get "teeth grinding" from?

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Aug 16 2010, 01:22 AM

Remember the hyllus that i supposedly lost at a park?
Guess what, it wasn't a hyllus. A somewhat similar sized and similar shade spider but totally different species....
Yeah, i know cuz i managed to catch it last week. Had been keeping it for a week now, and today i just got back my camera so here's some pics of a very elusive species.

i caught it in the park by searching all the dried leaves that fell and get caught in short shrubs hanging on its branches or leaves, pretty close to ground level. That area was very shady with many trees just at the bank of the park lake. That area is also where i got my hyllus female, that's why i thot it was a hyllus male. After many peelings of dried leaves i finally got 2 of them. one was a smaller and older one with one arm gone which i didnt take pics of. The other was a healthly larger one.

I'm sure it was the same species because of the extreme difficulty in catching it. It was sensitive, make straight drops and always hide the other side of my view.
Just now when i took it out to try to photograph it, it escaped! Heck, right into my own plants.

Here is its nest in my enclosure


when i took its nest out, it made a straight drop into my overgrown money plant in my old cage and right into the depths of its winding stem and roots...


crap, no choice but to take buckets(small bucket of course) and shower my plant to water it out..yet no sign of it after 3-4 full buckets, then suddenly it appeared right at the top of cage just peeking behind a leaf. damn elusive fella.

when i turned the leaf, it was gone! it crept out behind the netting because of a small opening..walau...now it was in danger of escaping into more growth and into the drain...i was thinking i have to ransack all my pots just to get back this fella. but luckily moving slowly, i manage to catch it as it was staying still under a stem of another creeper...

finally here he is:
face

compare with the face of my actual hyllus semi

hyllus looks prettier with its white band and line across its face

body

compare with the body of hyllus

hyllus again have white markings all over, while this elusive fella is quite evenly colored

size compare with my first king fs, my fs is 7mm head to abdomen tip.


i squared hyllus with this new unknown species. size almost similar but their stance is different, the new fella open up its forelegs to the side something like fs

while hyllus raise its forelegs high up


no engagement between them and initially for a few times, hyllus backed away...
the new guy is very slightly bigger than hyllus

later on, maybe because his back was turned, hyllus dared to approach him...

and when the new fella finally turn round and saw that my hyllus was too close for comfort... it backed off with arms raised.
from here, can also see that hyllus have a more shiny sheen to its carapace whereas the color of the new fella is duller.
also can see that the forelegs are visibly much longer than that of hyllus.


there is one more surprising difference between this unknown species and hyllus. The unknown species was actually quite hand friendly! hence u can see pics of it on my hand but not for hyllus. the unknown species was sensitve to disruption of its hiding place and movement but once i got it on my hand, it didn't jump off like it stepped on a hot plate, unlike the hyllus. The unknown species can comfortable walk and jump to and fro my hands but not hyllus...the moment hyllus touched my hand it bounced off as if it touched a hot iron.

i suspect the one i saw when i was a kid was this species and not hyllus...
so what species is this big jumping spider? ID anyone?


on a side note, my hyllus female laid eggs in a very tightly knitted nest, stepping out at its doorway only once every couple of days for a fly..


This post has been edited by mindstorm: Aug 18 2010, 01:14 AM

i don't think it is thiania at all. Of all the thiania i have come across, they all make nest in between leaves where the gap is quite flat. this fella is like other "ghost' spider, which nest is more spacious and lots of messy webbing. All thiania also have the distinctive irridescent pattern. The color of this fella is too far off.
wah, if thiania so big, all kaki's eyes sure pop out.

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Added on August 21, 2010, 1:33 amyeah, sometimes, females may avoid each other. To get females to fight, try putting them in nests to fight.
no, if he didnt get to mate, i think he will be more motivated to fight.

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Added on August 21, 2010, 1:39 amyeah, looks like it. The chopper looks a bit weaker and really got trashed.

To a fs, having chopping skills is very useful only if there is no human intervention...because they can give surprise to its opponent and chop from behind. However, we humans will make sure our fs face each other first before allowing them to fight, hence for the chopper fs, it loses its main advantage as a chopper. It's tenacious skill then may become a liabilty esp if faced against a strong fs. The chopper then becomes "stupid" enuf to fight a fs much stronger than itself, hence putting himself at risk like in the above clip.

From version 1, here we are reminded of the true danger of chops..(i still laugh when i see the first one haha!)

Buay Steady Fights!
thinLeaf VS chop(yuda)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D99qwj0CF_w
Fighting Spiders: Grip vs Tengah Rd2 (Grip wins)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_ka0-TbKXg

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Added on August 21, 2010, 1:40 amhi, on behalf of all kakis, thanks for ur comments. any 80s story to share?

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Aug 21 2010, 01:49 AM

Our effort in searching for jumpers pales in comparison to that of Dr. Maddison.
http://updatedfrequently.com/up-to-50-new-...apua-new-guinea

wah, ur Vortex seems like invincible hor. maybe i shld bring my king to challenge...

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Added on September 4, 2010, 2:11 amhey...this female pattern exactly the same like the giant bu viper gave me last time.
http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/608348/+680 (post #689)
the abdomen pattern exactly the same, the lines that run at both sides doesn't go down the sides like in T.bhamoensis, but run along the top towards the end, ending with a spot right at the end of the abdomen Size also very big but not fierce. Also they are found at higher altitude place. Another species i think. I didn't think the males would turn out to be smaller, though. I thot that with such a big female then their males would be bigger!! Maybe can wait to see how big ur sub-adult male would turn out. If also small with shorter arms, then, with 3 examples perhaps we can conclude the males in general are small. Yes very cute and colourful, but of course would be no match in fighting against our bigger and fiercer T.bha.

Anyway, great photos u took and also great clips u posted earlier.

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Sep 4 2010, 02:18 AM

At long last i managed to ID the unknown species i caught 2 years ago
http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/608348/+800 (post #804)
Pancorius magnus
I compared the head pattern of the dead female with this one from this site
http://salticidae.org/salticid/diagnost/pa...iu/magnu-ph.htm

I got the clue when i was looking through these photos from this guy, H. K Tang
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ehktang/sets/72157601644202650/
Incredible photos, and best of all, with ID and some notes.
I noticed he ID this male hyllus semicupreus wrongly
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ehktang/30214...57601644202650/
which i then googled for pancorius since i never come across this genus name before which led me to
the above ID site and also another confirmation photo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgfreestyler/3352604475
which i compare to the smaller specimen i took a photo of


damn, 2 years to ID a jumper...

H.K Tang also took some photos of the unknown species i'm keeping now but he also do not know the genus or species
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ehktang/21473...57601644202650/

Now this is one strange jumper i never come across before...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ehktang/22121...57601644202650/

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Added on September 5, 2010, 2:51 amhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/ehktang/32788...57601644202650/

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Added on September 5, 2010, 2:57 amThe Giant Bu seems quite healthy but maybe aging that's why it slipped and drown.
Not sure if higher altitude spiders are necessarily bigger but i think it has more to do with the temperature i guess. Taiwan/Hongkong Thiania certainly looks bigger.

hmm, dont really have favourite but a solid darker colour seems to be more attractive than light ones.

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Sep 5 2010, 03:04 AM

holycow. where did u catch that?

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Sep 6 2010, 07:43 PM

wat sort of foliage was that? it can't be cb tree gua?

yeah, i know it is a Portia, that's why i was quite shock cuz i myself have never come across a portia before but only read about its cunning tactics used to catch other spiders as prey. It looks big...it is big?
i think ur clip is the 3rd clip in youtube showing a portia. Ur portia being the most active one. the way it moves and its structure looks likes some sort of transformer robot. Pretty awesome. are u still keeping it?

seems a male Anderson's house spider
http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/s...us_adansoni.htm

make sure u feed it everyday with small insects. u will have to try wat insects to give. some spiders may eat ants and some don't. just drop the insect infront of ur spider. and make sure u give a drop of water everyday and keep it away from insects. make sure ur container got air holes. enjoy ur spider!

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Added on September 10, 2010, 2:37 amwow, never think they can be found in such foliage. yea, it seems they only eat other spiders, mainly orb web spiders... that would make them difficult to keep.
wah, shakedown method is the most powerful method，everything also sapu.

haha, thks for the suggestion but sending spider too expensive. i think i will try to find one in some suburbs around kl, just to look at them close up.

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Added on September 10, 2010, 2:38 amwat yellow fs r u talking about? got pic?

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Sep 10 2010, 02:38 AM

Tuesday evening spent some time around some forest edge in some rich housing estate. Another sort of adhoc scouting cuz i was visiting my sister who was sick and she stay near that area. Again, tough luck looking for jumpers. Despite scouting around some thick foliage at prime time around 5pm, I failed to spot any interesting jumper. Definately no fs. Well, jumper or none i still enjoy hanging around the greens and breathing in the cool fresh forest air.


Heavy leaf litter.

Did manage to find one juvenile pancorius. It was happily eating another type of red spider before it got disturbed by me. With the white marking running down the middle of its head, it looks like a female.


Later in the evening, I moved to another spot where there was a population of fs to be found in these big leaves plant, both juveniles and adults. It was interesting that i just lift one of them leaves and there sits a male. 3 males i spotted but i took home only one, the biggest one. But it is only M size. Yet to test it against the first king i'm having. It is interesting to note how fs populations tend to be concentrated in one area, for further up or down the road even in the same plant types i found not one fs, not even a juvenile.



I also lurked around some cb plants and manage to find a small bavia female with eggs inside a dried up cb leaf.
I have gotten this small species before. At first i thought they were juvenile slings to the huge one i once had. But I think they may be a different species considering the female are able to lay eggs at such a small size, even smaller than a normal fs male. This finding is the second female with eggs i have seen.
Looking carefully, u can see the slings have banded abdomen pretty much like some cartoon bubblebee.



On a side note, my hyllus semi slings are doing pretty well, around 20 of them moulted into 2nd instar and not one dead. The 1st instar turn out to be pretty big, being equivalent to 3rd instar fs slings. The genus hyllus slings are pretty awesome, easily taking prey similar or even slightly larger than their own size even at first instar. Here's one tackling a pinhead cricket.


This post has been edited by mindstorm: Sep 16 2010, 03:12 AM