Thanks for the clips, we finally have video documentation of chop vs chop fights (i.e. pushing is for sissies). Also thanks for blowing on the spiders to save 6leg.

If you can get a chop male to mate, it will be a first. They seem to be more kecut than usual and they'll try to bite the female instead of trying to get on top.

Noname/Jack is really, really fast. I wonder if it's a fighting technique to jump over his opponent to bite the abdomen, or just plain luck. Sometimes chops are so out of control that I don't think they know where they're going when they jump. I do know that chops do get hurt fighting against non chops too, although it's uncommon.

I hope Bigleave and 6leg can recover. You may need to check up on them more often the next few days and have plenty of fresh water.

You can certainly try Jack with the female chop or with Bighead, but you may have to be quick to intervene if one of them taps out.

Viper, as you can see, even with a head to head match, which is as fair as it can get, non chop FS are still at a disadvantage against the chop FS. I think the non chops have a better chance in the fight if they can withstand the initial attack, which most of them cannot.

Interestingly chops don't behave like that when warding off other species of jumping spiders. They only chop their own kind.

This post has been edited by Mangrovejumper: Feb 27 2008, 05:13 PM

You have a fair argument here. I agree that rematch would be cruel, since we already know the result. However if you look at the other clips involving 6leg (specifically clips against Bighead) you'll see that he can hold his own in a fight against a normal spider. 6leg is a chop, he will try to eat smaller males too if he has a chance. It's also a fair assumption that he was involved in something very violent before he was caught that caused him to lose 2 of his legs. The difference is, it wasn't captured on video to be shared with the world and commented on.

Mindstorm has the last say, but retiring 6leg may not be a bad idea assuming that he recovers. BTW, he has certainly helped show what a "chop" is. Try explaining what it is to a passerby without using the video clip. You'll find that it's darn near impossible.

We're well aware of our impact on Thiania Bhamoensis spiders. We have the desire to share our passion and as a result people that have never seen fighting spiders can now gain an appreciation for them. Don't you think that these video clips are educational? How many times have you heard someone say they will smash a spider to a pulp if they ever see one near them? If we can change 1 person's opinion here, we'll undoubtedly spare countless spiders' lives.

I know that we're not doing the fighting spiders any justice by the rampant development that's occuring in their habitat to the point that they may be scarce or even gone by the time our children are adults. And if that happens, at least we'll have these everlasting video clips to pass on.

---

Added on February 28, 2008, 1:25 amSorry to hear. You knew it right after the fight. I guess the lesson learned is never fight a less than full strength spider with a chop.

This post has been edited by Mangrovejumper: Feb 28 2008, 01:26 AM

Mindstorm: The era of chops has begun again.

The .pdf article has been referenced earlier. No where in it talks about the chop behaviour though.

We know this:
1. The chop or cannibalistic trait is not something that is inherited. Fighting spiders are not born with it and do not exhibit it when young. Only a very small percentage of adult spiders ever show it.

2. It is somehow related to the spider's mental ability to function. They are not able to mate (at least from our attempts so far) and they may not look like a healthy spider when walking around (i.e. walk in interval hitches). They do not lose their fierceness like the normal spiders do which implies they have some form of amnesia.

The thinking is that it's a learned behavior or a disease of madness. Perhaps there's a rabies-type virus that hasn't been isolated from these spiders yet, who knows. How it's learned is something we haven't been able to figure out.

Btw chop fighting spiders are not the only spiders that fight like that. Check this out (thanks, mindstorm).

External link: Big spider star female fight (Sorry I couldn't get the embed feature to work)
Jumping at the opponent is actually quite common among other jumping spiders that are not T. bhamoensis. They are not widely publicized because they are not as common/easily acquired as fighting spiders nor are they easily controllable by hand. They do not dance around like normal fighting spiders, so that may also contribute to the disinterest among spider enthusiasts. But they do exactly what chops do.

I believe it's as much about science as it is about entertainment and publicity. You cannot find out more about spiders without intruding into their lifestyles. We've covered fighting, mating, breeding, habitat, diet, predators, even moulting in this thread. I hope you have learned something about these spiders too.

This post has been edited by Mangrovejumper: Feb 29 2008, 03:52 AM

You're right, I think the fuzz looks like fungus. I wonder if it has to with too much moisture or darkness? It reminds me of the stuff that grows on the skin of fruits that you keep for too long. My other thought is the fungus grew from the inside...especially the fact that it attacked the abdomen only, very puzzling indeed.

Viper: What is the ranking for your spiders? Hope, Lily2 and X all look about the same size.

Mindstorm: Did Jack try to attack the stomach and fail? It's also brighter...so it may help the normal spiders see and defend themselves better. As mentioned earlier, I think if the normal FS can withstand the initial attack, they have a chance.
Bighead didn't even break a sweat, looked selamba only after winning. I'm glad to see that Bighead and Bigleave have recovered.

It's just a guess so it may not be true, but I don't think spiders have the enzymes to digest sugar. Who knows what happens to the fructose molecules floating around in the spider's blood. I know they don't get to drink sweet stuff in the wild.

I theorise the chances of a chop winning a fight dramatically increases in a darker environment, because the opponent cannot see the initial attack coming and doesn't have enough time to react to it.

Viper: Thanks for the southindianspiders link. It will help us identify some common spiders in the future.

Mindstorm: Still have no success with mating chops? Haha. What is the chop female up to nowadays?

The kelapasawit-jack slo-mo clip is great. It allows you to see the counter move (bite from underneath) for the initial pounce. On round 1, after the initial counter, it was a 50-50 tussle. Jack did manage the lift Kelapasawit, but he didn't run away and Jack gave up. The 2nd round was an even better counter that flipped Jack and subsequent pursuit by Kelapasawit. It reminds me of a tennis match where the one player hits a hard serve but the other hits the return shot equally hard that wins the point.

Thanks for the Bighead clip. You certainly have enough documented events on him to write an epic story. So I guess we can hypothesize that the adult life of the FS is about 4 months assuming that he's old, and not sick. It'll be interesting to see if females live longer than males...just like humans.

Fret not, for even the greatest warriors of the land succumbed to mighty Time.
The search continues for the next generation of gladiators....

For some reason it's very hard to find hantu kuning males. The females used to be everywhere when I was a kid, living in lalang leaves that are rolled up.

That's a very nice Bavia. The large males (all black in colour) are among the largest jumping spiders I know of. They are also very strong jumpers...I've seen one jump about 2 feet.

Yeah I don't know about cannibalism. Other species of spiders maybe, but not smaller FS. I've never seen the fighting ability of FS affected by the food, so I don't believe in it. However, your point of the fighting ability peaking at a certain period in the adult life of a FS is a good one. I think some of Viper's training techniques are effective too. At other times you just have to get lucky and catch one with a never quit attitude. At the end, size matters the most.

Just keep the spiders healthy by giving them enough food, water and sunlight, and they will be at their best.

Looks like you converted your spiders to chop? It is truly the chop era. Any ideas on what you did that converted them?

That IS the question, isn't it?

Possibility#1: Chop behavior is inherent. Regardless of what you do, it will show itself eventually. Genetic component?

Possibility#2: It's an infection, specifically a CNS infection, spread by contact. The FS has lost its mind...sudah gila. Becomes super aggressive, a male loses interest in females easily. A chop female will never willingly allow a male to mate her. They also have short memory, almost never kecut. Like any communicative infection, the spread is not 100%. Some FS are more resistant to it than others (e.g. kelapasawit, bighead). Just like humans, some people get sick every few months while others get sick once every 5 years.

I'm pretty sure Bro1 is now a chop, although he may not be a full chop. Why do chops not all act the same way? If you think disease, you can argue that some chop FS have a more severe form of it. If you think genetic you'll have to think of variations/strength of the genetic expression.

It's also irreversible, so if it's a gene it cannot be turned off after it's been turned on. If it's an infection, it will never heal.

The next question would be whether it's progressive. Does a chop FS get more chop with time?

Perhaps you're right that it's not a disease, but I doubt you can get it from just from training. Training your male FS doesn't explain why they lose interest in females easily. Often they would rather push the female than try to mount her. Training doesn't explain why true chop FSs do not show an angry face. Mindstorm's Joe is a true chop...he doesn't give a rip about frightening the other spider away with an angry face. As a matter of fact, he is more likely to show a kecut face (bringing the teeth up to partially cover the face)...Mindstorm can probably confirm.

All your spiders fight very well. But the only chop you have that I can see in the clips is Kaizer. The others are not chops, regardless of how they stay in fights, do arm locks or chops while fighting.

BTW vampires/werewolves were once (falsely) thought of as the blood disorder: porphyria. The chop attribute, instead, looks similar to behaviour of animals with rabies.

Questions I have for Mindstorm are:
1. Is a chop less likely to roam around during the day to look for females?
2. Does a chop have a shorter lifespan as a nonchop FS, or is it about the same?
3. Do they behave the same way as normal FS in their daily activities? E.g. Bed making at night and keep the nest clean by dropping food scraps and excrement off the edge of the nest, etc. It will further explain the mental irregularities of a chop FS.

Viper:
Kaizer is a chop. Let me know if you manage to mate him with a female.
The earlier video clips of Hope and Xinan show that they are not chops. Perhaps you managed to convert them recently. The newer clips don't show the early fighting stance, so I can't tell for sure. They are all very good fighters.

Mindstorm:
Bro1 rocks! He is worthy of an epic tale on his life. Early on he got walloped kaw kaw by the bigger FSs, but now he is a grizzled veteran who can hold his own and has won many great battles.
It would be easier to track the development and maturation of your spiders if you can standardise your clip titles. Include "spider name vs spider name, Date" as part of the title. Winner on the left side.
Will Longman get a shot at fighting Jack when he recovers? Or will you save his butt?

Spider bandar and spider besi look like different types of house spiders.
Spider besi looks like the big females we caught in Seremban that were kecut when facing the big spider star female.
Spider bandar looks like Plexippus petersi:

I have never been able to fight them partly due to the constant jumping of the spiders and they fact that they're not very fierce. Regardless, they would be food for the Bavia.
Should show viper a golden spider male some time if he hasn't seen one. Beautiful spider.

The HK clips are not bad. The Thiania there look bigger than what we have, but they are soooo sluggish. I assume they mostly fight females because the fights last longer. Female fights can last forever inside the nest, man. I agree there seems to be a partial chop female in the clips. Should try to get them to opine here if they don't mind posting in English.

Good description of the different styles of attack.

Different spiders will try different techniques...I think that's why we call them 1/2 chop, 1/4 chop, partial chop, full chop. It's similar to fighters that use muay Thai vs Jiu jit su vs Russian sambo vs pencak silat. Which is better? It depends on how good they are at it and how good the opponent is. The technique itself doesn't ensure victory, there are so many other determinants in a fight.
In a fight there's one gold standard of a chop FS:
A chop FS will not dance (side to side, forward and backward) with its opponent while showing a fighting stance and angry face. If you have one that does that, it's not a chop.

You are right that some other species of jumping spiders only display the chop attack. Others will only push. Some will not even touch each other before one runs away. Another type "Long legs" (not a jumping spider) will put a leg on the opponent's forehead to prevent biting...I don't know the scientific name of it, but they often live in Tembusu trees. No video though.
Attack methods come in a wide variety of ways.

The Bavia is a female la. Males are completely black in colour, remember? You can feed her with house spiders and film it.

Bro1 vs Jack seems to require a bigger stage! More lighting is good too, should invest in brighter lights so that the colors are even better on the video capture. It will be an excellent upgrade for your spider lab.

Sorry to hear that the female chop is dead. The assisted mating video was recent, wasn't it? It's the only chop in your collection that has never lost a fight!

Never mention tuk tak. Horrible horrible incident that has forever scarred my memory.

BTW have you tried the chalk that kills ants? You can apply it on a tape that you wrap around the legs of your shelf for extra protection...powder is already dry so it doesn't lose effectiveness. It's also toxic to spiders though.

Haha! It makes me think of monks in the monastery. No women allowed there and they're all kung fu masters!

I do not know the matchups of the spiders since I haven't seen them in person. I agree on same size fights for best results.
If Hades is a large spider, then he needs to face Hope first. One of them faces Longman. Other than that I have no idea. I can't keep track of so many spiders. You can always have round 2 for different sized winners if they are unhurt after round 1. The grand champion faces the Bavia. (Just kidding!)

I've never seen a chop revert back to a normal non-chop FS. I've managed to make some chops kecut in the past by continuously making then lose fights, but they never become non-chop. Too bad you don't have the clip to show. It does seem that it has spread among your fighters. The stance for Nexus is very similar to Kaizer's. One of the X spiders (Xinan?) could be a converted chop too.

Remember how some of your spiders died from the fuzzy white growth on the abdomen? I wonder if you can duplicate the experiment by feeding one of your training FS juice/sugar water. What happened to Archilles and Spartan remained a mystery.

Thanks for the vids. Sorry to hear of the loss of Jack and Bro1. They were at a disadvantage fighting Viper's bigger, healthier and younger spiders. Kinda proves the hypothesis of "peaking" at a certain point in the adult spiders' lives and then diminishing.

It's amazing how fast the spiders are converted to chops. Early on nobody had any chops. Now more than 1/2 the spiders are chops.
I guess if you want to mate them, you better do it before they lose interest in mating. Otherwise you'll have to catch good sized adolescent spiders and let them moult in captivity. As Liana wrote, you may never be able to breed slings to adults.

I'm surprised that you were able to find a male Bavia so quickly. It's exciting to know that they're still here despite the rampant development and pollution.

Good questions. I don't think it's the plastic. House spiders can lay eggs on artificial surface and it worked for them. The eggs are definitely fertilised. You personally observed it.

Sun light may play a factor, but what about humidity and temperature? Nest grooming/cleaning by the female may play a factor (removing dirt/fungus). Did the drinking water you spray get on the eggs? Perhaps the eggs needs some humidity but not too much.

I previously suggested breeding FS in the wild so that you can replicate the natural process. It's not too difficult, considering that you now know exactly how long it takes the batch of eggs to hatch.

You can find a standalone shrub or plant that is free of other FS (or you can clear one) and put a female that is ready to lay eggs there (you have the info of the gestation period too). Shouldn't be too hard to find a nice nest/make a nest for the female. They don't roam like males do which makes your job easier.

Once the eggs hatch, you can take some of the slings back into captivity if you want to try to rear them. If a few run away before you can capture them, it's okay. You don't need the whole batch. If you fail at least you can convince yourself that some of the slings could make it in the wild and you didn't lose the whole gene lineage.

The other thought that was previously presented is, if you want to test your breeding and rearing methods, you don't need good fighters. What you need are a lot of pre-adult females. Keep them until they moult and then they breed easily. After all you need to perfect your method before you try with Bighead-type gene lines.

It's a more complicated process than we first assumed, obviously.


The Malay blog is amat kelakar sekali. Tak reti nampak lelabah menjimak. Mesti rujuk blogger tu kepada klip video anda yang bergelar "Jack Kissing". Pasti dia dikagumi...sampai mulut pun ternganga.

This post has been edited by Mangrovejumper: Apr 18 2008, 10:02 PM

Thanks everyone for the posts.

The Singaporean FS males look big. In the Longclaw vs Thickarm clip, didn't Thickarm look like he has longer claws than Longclaw? It may be a lack of experience factor. Or maybe Thickarm needs to go through Viper's training regimen.

There's no follow up on the sgforum spider competition.

The 5 legged spider does look a bit like Big spider star, but I don't think it's the same type. The abdomen is too long to be the same type. Perhaps it's a related sub species. The body type looks like one of the 2 biggest spiders I've caught too (although a different colour). I still regret not getting the pictures of those 2 spiders up to this day.

The Australian "transparent" spider is beautiful. Very similar to ours. Probably a fuiyo food for the golden spider!

Viper's Plexippus paykulli (spider bandar) male does grow quite big. I've never seen one the size of the Bavia though. Very difficult to handle...they jump non stop.

Finally the largest jumping spider link has the picture of Phiddipus regius. It is the spider I took a picture of when I was on vacation in North Carolina last week. Looks like it's a male, slightly bigger than Hantu Kuning or Big spider star, but not the size of the Bavia. Sorry for the blurry picture, my macro sux.

This post has been edited by Mangrovejumper: Apr 21 2008, 07:09 AM


Attached thumbnail(s)

Spider pandan looks like another type of house spider. Hasarius adansoni.. I've never fought them, so I don't know if they can fight. They're typically smaller than the Plexippus sp. house spiders.

Plexippus sp. (in Asia) shouldn't be confused with Phiddipus sp. (North America) though. I just realised it as I'm typing that the two names are very similar.

The other spider listed earlier is a Siler semiglaucus. Nice colours to look at, but useless except as food.