Mangrovejumper: Wah, 2 legs? verge of death... I think most likely ants cuz last time i once threw a house spider at a group of ants(kerangga) i think... one ant graped its legs and immediately the house spider broke it off to escape death. So I think that 2 legged spider most lucky to be able to break off 6 legs to save its own life but sad to be left with 2...

Terrorist: Nope they din fight. The small black spider too small la... it ran away when Bro2 moved closer.
Those small spiders are mighty cute actually. Even without fighting, they make very cute pets. They are quite hand friendly too like our normal fighting spider. I've been feeding them fruit flies.

Viper: You seem to have witness a lot of appendage breaking fights... Actually these fights very rare. I think in my life i probably saw not more than 5 - 6 times these kinda fights. Of cuz this is not counting those unfair fights like repeatly putting a already weaken, smaller male to a bigger fierce one. Small boy that time do, but now I dont. Once i think, i saw middle legs gone too from a fair fight. Dunno how they turn and turn and one of the middle legs got bitten off and eaten.

Lockheart: Where you stay? Maybe you take a pic of your forest(one far, one close up on their leaves) and show us and we can tell you wheather likely to have fighting spiders or not.


Mangrovejumper: I have a way to compare sizes of spiders across generations even though they are dead. But must take their picture against a 1mm grid paper. I then do some tweaking with photoshop to resize, rotate and align the grids of different pictures and wala.. you can compare their size to see which is bigger. Also can roughly measure their head width like i did in the pic below. I drew a line(yellow) across their heads and rotate that line and place it against the grid. I think need to measure head length too cuz can see a noticable difference too. The pic below is all_blacks(top) and bighead(bottom). I think bighead head width is about 2.5mm and all_blacks head width about 2.45mm?

Too bad we don't have a pic of AJAX, your aclaimed all time HUGE spider. The biggest fighting spider I saw was not mine but of a boy I met on the street when I was in primary school in singapore. He was catching spiders with his friends in a deserted plant nursery. When he opened to let me see...gosh..it was incredibly big and was so fierce it charged(very fast i remember) at its oponent on the matchbox and its oponent just fled without daring to fight. I asked him where he caught it and he said beside the drain. So till today I believe big spiders are found near water area because firstly there are more insects near wet areas and secondly plently of water enable spider to expand more when moulting. (Some people say that tai sui pao(big water spider) cannot fight...but that was certainly not the case). Interestingly dry areas usually you get small spiders.

Today I was sooooooooooo HAPPY!!! Guess why? Bighead mated with the biggest and fiercest female I got!! This female called Bigqueen was caught from Puchong and her head size is almost as big as bighead himself. Her size is not easy to find for a female. Bigqueen actually laid a batch of eggs on the 10/01/08(unknown male) but unfortunately she ate them on same day cuz I tried to inspect her eggs. So I was WRONG in postulating female spiders only mate once. Looks like in general they don't mate because they are pregnant or still carrying sperm from previous mating. After eating her eggs, I still kept Bigqueen because of her size and maybe i thot she would lay again.(because I was thinking spiders mate once and can keep laying eggs) But curiously i realize she was not getting any fatter after 20 days. So I thot just see wat happens i put her with bighead. Bigqueen put up a angry stance at first but after much persistant dancing around, bighead managed to mount her after a short while(1 minute maybe). No second round though. HAHA! i was elated! Man, her brood I will treat it like GOLD. Two of the biggest specimens I got...

Also today I saw a tiny baby in the container of the female i mated with THE Quietman. Walao... only one left... I fed the female and then inspect her nest a bit.. as i suspected...she had two nest! The first one on the bottom leave already empty...dunno when babies came out. There was another one on the top leave with eggs still inside. Anyway I took the last survivor baby of the first nest and kept it in another container. I placed a leave and some soil with springtails for it as food. Hopefully it will eat it. Tomorrow I'm thinking of removing the female and let the second batch of eggs develop without her.

Anyway to answer HuonHengChai about posting information about breeding, there you have it, cuz I'm still finding out. Searching the net I can't find anyone else trying to breed jumping spiders. Other spiders got la.

Some notes and challenges I faced when trying to breed fighting spiders
1. Gestation period(from mating to laying eggs) of a virgin female takes about 18 days(so far one account only)
2. A female can lay 2 broods of eggs in one leave nest(2 accounts-one wild and one from quietman's wife)
3. Female cannot hold back laying eggs when time is up even if no suitable nest as a female has been seen laying eggs on the side of a porcelain pot/vase hence it is opened(account by mangrovejumper)
4. Females would eat their own eggs if you tear their nest and expose their eggs even if you close it back immediately
5. Eggs laid and removed from females may not hatch. They can just turn brown and dry up.
6. Once I took home a batch of eggs with the female and separated the female. The nest I open to see the eggs. After that I just left in a container...guess what happened. Next day I noticed it turned brown! Few more days, it looked dried up and shrunken! What happened?? Did they female bite the eggs and kill them as I was transporting her home because of the movement and stress? Or... was it because of LIGHT? I remember once my brother kept a batch of eggs and managed to hatch all of them after what seems like a long long time(maybe 2 weeks or a month). I also remember he kept it in a matchbox...dark inside. So I am thinking that strong light may somehow kill the eggs that's why eggs removed from female but exposed wont hatch!
Soon we'll find out...


Anyway, I applied for Streamyx(1.0mbps) yesterday...so hopefully in a couple of days, i can easily upload more interesting fighting clips.....

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Feb 1 2008, 03:58 AM

Saw ur video. Nice. Quality not bad. U shld have recorded those triple chop fights earlier u had. Wld have like to see them. Banglo seems a bit gila. But looks like Banglo is on a winning streak against Lowland. Wah you fight them everyday? Shld let them rest a day or two, feed them a lot then fight again. Maybe u shld let lowland see female or fight with house garden spider for confidence trainning.

If i stay near u, i sure wld bring a new good fighter to fight Banglo...Blurman.

Interesting scientific observations. With the amount of data you'll have by the end of this year, you can probably publish a paper on it!

Ajax was from a time where we didn't have enough resources and guidance to document our experiences. It was also from a time that I always had at least one chop spider among my collection. Those were the days when hot spots were bountiful and KL wasn't as developed as it is now. I agree that the biggest fighting spiders always tend to live in areas with plenty of moisture and adequate shade, but enough sunlight. I've never found big males in the middle of the hutan belantara.

Did Quietman's female get enough food to keep her satisfied? I assume she ate all the rest of the hatchlings.

The "big spider star" nest that I had 2 months ago didn't have a female watching over the batch of eggs and they hatched even though the leaf got dry and turned brown. So I'm not really sure if the mother is needed to care for the eggs, other than guard them against predators.

Here's tis morning fight.

Banglo vs LowLand

1st round. Start with arm pushing, Banglo at top push and chop LowLand backwards. LowLand gives a good counter attack and chop back at Banglo pushing it back to rear of leaf. Later LowLand gave another chop forcing Banglo to move downwards but suddenly Lowland also ran off. It seems like Lowland win but actually Banglo won coz Lowland retreat.

Link: http://download.yousendit.com/C492CF4B1AE2E0F0

2nd round. Just short arm pushing and LowLand ran away.
Link: http://download.yousendit.com/AE84B5896BBACE5F

Normally i let the spiders fight alternate day, only once a while let them fight the next day. Nowdays the spider also seems not hungry. Feed them abt 2-3 days once.

Yesterday went to Titiwangsa and KL Tower forest to catch spider. Dang it was raining!... din manage to find anything at Titiwangsa coz by the time reach there the rain starts ady. I decided to leave for KL Tower forest. At KL Tower forest, only managed to catch 3 average size female fighting spider, 1 adult male spider but its a different type so i let it go.. The males spider nest is quite big, its hiding in is nest (looks like alien hiding inside a coccoon, i tot strike gold ady... but after peel off its nest, its a big male spider but not a fighting spider! Dang....Then it start to rain at KL tower forest also. Walk all the way out from the forest, soaked till my skin.

Waited till about 5.30pm, but it still drizzling, went back to KL Tower forest only for 30 mins coz tat place close at 6pm. No luck oso, coz its getting dark ady and the place is slippery. Heard alot of ppl say, normally all the snakes, scorpions, centipede loves to come out after rain to get dry. Abit scared oso coz i'm alone at the forest so fast fast go home and release the female spiders to my house garden again..


Cheers,
v_viper88

This post has been edited by viper88: Feb 3 2008, 08:42 AM

Today after work, exercise abit den off again go look for fighting spider.
Caught 4 females and 1 adult male. The adult male about same size like Banglo but slightly smaller than LowLand. Caught all the spiders from Lily leaves, so i name the new male fighting spider as Lily. Man.. i still cant find any big fierce fighting spider yet...

Banglo vs Lily
1st Round
Banglo push and chop Lily, Lily push abit back and chop Banglo. Banglo retreat.

2nd Round & 3rd Round
Just short push only and Banglo ran off.


LowLand vs Lily
1st Round
LowLand charge close to Lily. Lily still not realize LowLand is already in front, coz bz looking at my pda camera..wanted to jump r?
When Lily saw LowLand.. both start using arms to wack. After awhile, Lily ran off. Maybe not yet ready to fight?

2nd Round
This time Lily saw LowLand 1st and get ready to fight. LowLand caught by suprise but immediately gives good counter attk. Both spider just arm fighting only. In the end Lily retreat.


Heres the video
 3Feb08.zip ( 984.48k ) Number of downloads: 29


Video quality so so coz taken indoor summore its ady nite 7pm++.

Cheers,
v_viper88

This post has been edited by viper88: Feb 3 2008, 10:32 PM

Whaoho..viper! Looks like you're going into wilder areas to hunt for 1st king yeah? Good man! Hope you can find big strong challenger! Yeah..this couple of weeks raining alot... I also always wanted to go catch spider then start rainning. So nowadays I always look at sky, if i see rain clouds around, I might as well forget about it. Tuesday i was at Great Eastern... wait for my wife at 5.30 pm but was there at 4.30, you know la what i would do with that extra time...but unfortunately at 5.00pm the sky look like 7.30pm!! Then started pouring...At 5.45pm, outside look like 8.00pm!

Wah, seems like now you have A beat B, B beat C and C beat A situation. Banglo beat Lowland, Lowland beat Lily, Lily beat Banglo. Heheh.. also means all quite equal. Keep them and feed them well. Aiyah..3-4 days eat once very sad la. Why dont you feed one spider twice a day and another one 3 days one time. Then you can test your theory (feeding less makes the spider hungrier and a better fighter) wheather correct or not. I think feed too little will
weaken ur spider.

All the spiders you catch which u dont want u release in ur house garden ah? Overpopulation di...

Ur latest video(the zip file) cannot see la. My winzip cannot unzip it. What software you use to zip it?

PS. u go catch spiders, take some pics too..more interesting.

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Feb 4 2008, 02:14 AM

Ok, I got my streamyx already... pretty fast, in fact blazing fast...at first...then now and then slow down. But ok la...better than dialup

Here are the power struggle fights between topman and bro1..

22/01/08(mentioned before)
Topman(won) vs bro1 - rolled off the screen(no clip)
Topman(right) vs bro1(left) again - topman chased bro1 off paper
see video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoR66ObSVvw

25/01/08
Bro1(right) vs topman(left)
Bro1 won! Bro1 carried topman to the edge of leave..afterthat cannot see. Then when i recovered topman..he was injured! One side leg standing up... Good one from Bro1

see video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVxNjjMS0WI

02/02/08
Today I fought the spiders on glass surface(my dining hall coffee table). I always think that if spiders fight on smooth surface(even a smooth leave like money plant leaf), they can fight a bit longer than rough surface because the impact of push and chops would not be so great. It's like boxers wearing gloves to fight. Hence both spiders would receive softer blows and hence the fight would last longer because the weaker one wont run away so fast. You can actually see that as the spiders push each other, their legs keep slipping because of the smooth surface.

Topman(left) vs Bro1(right) - ROUND 1
Short fight with one chop. But can see Bro1 side stepping onto the ledge which cause him to slip and maybe lose abit of confidence.
see video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WYte7HL0LM

Bro1(left) vs Topman(right) - ROUND 2
13 second fight! Fought them again about maybe 15min later from round one. In between both had a fight with Bro2.
Both won Bro2. This round although Topman went all out to topple Bro1 but damn...Bro1 stood on firm ground and wouldnt let up...

After pushing a while, Bro1 started off with a couple of chops

Topman countered

Followed by grappling and holding on to each other

Bro1 SLAMMED Topman onto a container wall!!

After that topman look a bit dazed yet still try to chop Bro1, but then
Bro1 said no way hosay and Topman fled...

see video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzk1sfCITGE

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Feb 4 2008, 02:53 AM

Yeah, all the spiders i have not very big n fierce type. Sat quite free, tot can find some fierce big fighting spider at other place beside my house area. Too bad cant find any good ones.

The spiders i have doesnt seems want to eat those flies tat i've caught alive. Not sure whether they eat those dead flies later i throw in onot. Doesnt seem want to drink water oso. I just spray some water into the spider case. Its not tat i dont feed the spider well, just tat the spiders doesnt seem want to eat much

The earlier video i zipped using WIN RAR. Heres the one using WINZIP.
 3Feb08.zip ( 984.68k ) Number of downloads: 14
.

Yea.. wheres ur other spider fierce long videos? i want to dl oso.. .

Last time i normally trained the spider to chop by fighting it with other type of species spider smaller size. The fighting spider will kill off its opponent.
Fght with the small green grasshoppers oso. I also let it fight with 1-2 black ants just to make it gila-gila abit. Fighting spider tend to move franticly when see ants nearby.. dunno why.. either they excited or panic? One of my black fighting spider got bitten by the big ant with pincher on its arm and died. My friend oso told me bfr to feed fierce fighting spider with dead red ants coz red ants bite very stingy n painful. If the spider eat alot red ants juice, its own bite oso will be deadly and painful. Not sure whether true onot la..

The most exciting one is catch a big house flies(its eyes big type) and let the spider kill it off. Last time my fighting spider is big and fierce type, it will terkam at the big flies and kill it after some time coz the flies will struggle abit. The current spider i have, put small plant flies oso it duwan attck it only sometime when its hungry only it will kill the small flies.. haiz.. so much different from last time.

The big n fierce type of spider will always eat and drink alot everyday. Its not scared of other bigger insects, and will kill it off oso even its own kind of fighting spider normally the smaller one will die n become its food.

Yeah, train it with female spider n let other spider to fight in its nest also boost the my spider confident to fight fiercely.

Nowdays less time to train spider, after work i oso flat ady...summore go jogging abit... den nite sleep ady. If i train the spider hard like those skool days.. might have chance to beat ur spiders.. kekkekee..


Cheers,
v_viper88

how to determine fighthing spider a.k.a pow fu ?? i saw few in my garden but i'm not sure isn't it pow fu? It's a slings...

Slings means spiderlings? Depending on the size, the color may be a bit different. If it is very small, most probably it is still all black but as it grows older, maybe 4mm in length then may be able to see the irridescent greenish/bluish markings on its legs and abdomen like the adults u see in the pics and videos here.

Behaviour wise, they are found in between 2 smooth(non-hairy) leaves stuck together by their web. Usually they are found in plants/creeper under some shade. Very rarely do fighting spiders slings walk about hunting for food. If you see one walking and stopping in the open looking for food, most probably it is not a pow fu. They spend 99% of their time in between the leaves and only come out to strike at a passing ant/insect or if its nest happened to be destroyed or invaded by other insects/spiders. They will then quickly go back into their nest or look for a new one. Adult females are also quite passive. Only the adult males will come out almost daily and wander about to look for females. I think they come out about 2 times a day... usually between 9-10.30 and 4.30 to 6pm depending on the weather.

If u happen to catch an adult, don't hesitate to show it to us. If it is big, dont hesitate to let me know where you stay...

here's a couple of pics of only ONE sling i have(Quietman junior)
left pic: small enough just to sit on its Dad's head
right pic: I fed it with a very tiny type of ant that likes fruits...lots of them in my front porch

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Feb 4 2008, 08:41 PM


Attached thumbnail(s)

Hehe.. this forum itself is a good enuf "paper"... with pictures and videos, I think it is better than reading a scientific paper

yeah.. i think so too she ate her young or eggs. But i was feeding her everyday with some fly or ant. Now she has turn quite black..old i think. I have separated her out and let her second batch of eggs hatch on their own...hopefully they do.

Yeah later I will have a topic on fighting spider records... one of them will be the longest documented fight.

Wah, can fight with grasshopper? Never heard or try that before. I think the spider panic when see many ants cuz ants can kill them. Some fighting spider will eat red ants some don't. I think red ants give out a type of smell which repels the spiders.

Last time when young I always feed house fly to my spiders but nowadays I dont becuz i think feeding them house fly may cause them to die faster because most house fly are quite dirty carrying alot of harmful bacteria or parasites because most will come from the dirty dump.
Last year I caught a lot of spiders and fed them houseflies but all of them died within 1-2 months. I thot was old age but now you told me u kept a spider for 10 months means it cant be. Must be contamination from houseflies. I also read from a singapore forum that this guy also advice against feeding housefly because once he fed his spider housefly and next day it died!

Btw...still cannot unzip ur file la...

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Feb 5 2008, 05:14 AM

Yes, cny is here. Today i half day and will be having 8 days leave. Yeap, not wanting to waste the evening i went back to leech land in Puchong. Today i tell me story in pictures.

Reach there around 5.25pm. Walao, saw herd of kerbau behind the new rumah pangsa...interesting.. but the place i catch is the other side of the road...


The other side of the road. I didn't head straight to leech land but further up where i caught big leave, you can see the place is just beside busstop.
Pic on left shows deadend. Pic on right goes back to where i came from. Further back up is leech land.


First I saw a nest. I open a bit and yes there is a male inside! But unfortunately it jumped away when i tried to cut its leaf... So I explore further back up a bit.


I went into the shrubs a bit..can't go in much cuz there is a swamp but when i look back..heyhey...saw something...
dunno what these plants are called but their leave is small and soft... so i call them small leave plant, same ones i caught spiders in klang.


Before i catch this male, i looked around and saw another... heh, while trying to take more pictures of it, it jumped away! anyway eventually i waited and caught it. Also the one before this. Nice. 2 males in my pouch. Right pic shows the location is just beside road.


Suddenly i saw the busman walking up to me. He pointed and said, "Ular..." Ah... really ular...in the drain. I think it is a grass snake. Maybe someone from snake tread can confirm.


Anyway i went back to the first place where i lost a male and scouting nearby suddenly i saw a "hangkai pao"(wandering spider)... yeap it is the time of the day where males would wander around looking for food and female.. i think it was around 6.15pm.

When i tried to catch this guy(the biggest one caught today), it jumped and couldnt find it! Then i just look around and saw another one walking about! smaller one and caught it. Then i saw ANOTHER one also walking around!(nope i did not double type) but this time i did not catch it cuz i think it is small and also quite hard to catch. So i decided to wait for this big male. Wah..wait for 10-15min still did not show up... Got impatient and started searching..no wonder..it found a nest and stayed there... caught it. 4 males in my pouch.

I decided enuf for this area so I went back to leech land...why? cuz i want to catch some flies for my spiders back home...i remember leech land got a lot of fruit flies. Here is leech land. In the right pic can see the edge of the forest... one day i will explore there.


Where the leeches are(the right side of the pic)


Just beside the road. These are the leaves usually found in kelapa sawit plantation. They have tiny hairs. Not surprisely i don't find many fighting spiders here despite the dense leaves although got. Lowland was found in these type of leaves


1 minute i stepped into leech land and here i was greeted by the host(looks like i'm the host-to-be). No wonder... the ditch has become even more flooded due to contruction. The grey wall structure wasnt there when i came here the last time.. Looks like this area is going to be gone soon. Anyway smeared some OFF on this leech and on shoes.


I walk further in and started catching flies and also look at some nest. A lot of nest here are by a type of crab spider.. Here's a nice specimen.


Arrgh..attack by leech again. On my tracks. There you go..i shld say OFF you go.


Catch until about 7.30pm and went home. Here's the days catch.

Dont want to fight them today, let them eat and rest...Tomorrow let the games begin...

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Feb 5 2008, 05:07 AM

WOW...cool man..

Man.... u caught a lot of fighting spiders. Great catch.
Same size like BIG Guns or Big Head? Wa.. now u got alot spiders ady.. not easy to take care if got alot spiders.
I got 3 spiders altogether.


Yesterday i oso caught 2 average size male spider from sugar cane leaves near my housing area.
Let them fight, one quite fierce.. like 2 chop its opponent.

The winner i let it fight with Lily spider. The new sugarcane spider eventho smaller, its quite fierce. It attck chop Lily from behind! able to give a short fight before retreat. In 2nd round it still dare to fight Lily face 2 face but still lose. Its quite true people say fighting spider from sugar cane leaves are fierce. Got also hear tat fighting spider from Kelapa Sawit area leaves big n fierce oso.

I really didn't expect a smaller size fighting spider can chop another bigger spider from behind. If its size is bigger, chances for it to win is high.


K.. gtg back to work..

Cheers,
v_viper88

This post has been edited by viper88: Feb 5 2008, 12:39 PM

where can i buy or get them?

You can try catching them from shrubs under shade. I posted a lot of pictures to show the type of places you may find them. Or you can buy them from viper88 or me loh..

Besides fighting them, they can be quite fun to keep too. One of the reason fighting spiders are so likeable is because
1) Being jumping spiders, they have 2 big front eyes, hence can look at you like with human eyes. This makes them pretty cute. They actually have bifocal vision(overlapping field of vision of the two eyes) like humans which enable them to differentiate distance very well. They catch insects by stalking them like a tiger.
male. female


2) Fighting spiders are hand friendly. Newly caught ones maybe a bit wild and will try to jump away from your hand. But after a while when they get used to your hand, they will comfortably walk and jump about on your hands. Not all jumping spiders can be hand tamed. Most house spiders you see walking about in your house are impossible to get them used to human hands and will jump away once they touch human hands.

3) Their colours are pretty! Although their markings are quite uniform throughout their species but you cant deny their irridescent colours are quite attractive. Actually there are several species of the same genus and they can be found in many different countries, up to india, hongkong and taiwan! Different species have different patterns and size. In malaysia itself i know of another 2 species.

4) When you take them out to play they are very active creatures.

5) They are easy and almost free to maintain

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Feb 6 2008, 12:57 PM

Hai... those spider i caught in leech land.. 3 cannot fight.. only one can.. the biggest one. It wins Bro1 and topman. But it lost to big leave. so currently 5th king.

current ranking

Bighead
Bigguns
Blurman!!
Bigleave
Thickarms
Bro1
Topman
Bro2

I'm letting the others go.

Coming into 3rd month i'm keeping Bighead, still cannot find any spiders to challenge him. Looks like i will have to go back to where i found him to try to see wheather i can find his brothers to fight him!

Here's Bighead today...undisputed champion

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Feb 6 2008, 01:25 PM


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Sounds like your prediction of Blurman came true.

Bighead looks so fat. He looks a little bit darker now and more mature, but probably just hitting his peak.

It's interesting that in your journeys you haven't yet encountered:
1. A chop
2. A red teeth male

ICIC... can you please PM me the spiders that you sell? the pricelist and all?

thanks.