Here are some follow-up emails from my crazy friends to lighten up ur weekend and the truth from the spider-eater/disintegrater himself.
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Re: Pau fu and fighting fish
From: This sender is DomainKeys verified "Ju Tong" <jutong51@gmail.com>View contact details To: skerning@yahoo.comCc: adrianlwk@yahoo.com, "Jerry Yong" <jerry.yong@gmail.com>, ckay_tham@yahoo.com, golilah@yahoo.com.sg, "Chee Leong E-mail" <cl.heng@my.flextronics.com>, "Heng Gee Wai" <gee_wai@yahoo.com>, "Toh Kai Sim" <tohkaisim@yahoo.com>
-----Inline Attachment Follows-----

ok ok let me share my glorious moment with u all but do not laugh as loud. scare u nanti heart attack. I remember after the ***ing game, my warrior was damn tired. what i did was landed him on my pointing finger and slotted him into my T H R O A T. Is quite deep i guess. The moment i tranfer qi kong few round and remove he is still there. after while i slotted him again and did the same thing. After awhile i removed my finger, he is no longer there. At that time i was open my mouth widely and with the same finger to wipe him out from juicy tongue. i knew that he was died after seeing the 1st leg and slowly i saw his dead body. i guess i must drunk his blood and NOW i'm a truly Spider MAN. HAHAHAHAHHA

From: This sender is DomainKeys verified "Simon Lin" <skerning@yahoo.com>
Add sender to Contacts To: "Jerry Yong" <jerry.yong@gmail.com>, adrianlwk@yahoo.comCc: "Ju Tong" <jutong51@gmail.com>, skerning@yahoo.com, ckay_tham@yahoo.com, golilah@yahoo.com.sg, "Chee Leong E-mail" <cl.heng@my.flextronics.com>, "Heng Gee Wai" <gee_wai@yahoo.com>, "Toh Kai Sim" <tohkaisim@yahoo.com>

I didnt see how deep he put the spider in his mouth or the spider from outside jumped to his mouth. I only saw he spit out and on the floor I saw the legs and kim. Then I look at him, realized spider in his mouth and that was the reason why he spitted it out. Lesson to learn is...alw have a female spider around so that dun have to Har Har! Dunno KC will laugh when think back this incident...but for me and Dai Tau...I cannot forget this incident. Next time u see Dai Tau in Templer Flat...ask him if he remembers this. I think the spider jumped into his teeth and then got under his tongue. He has to use the tongue to take it out and spit it. His tongue's brushing against the spider to the teeth might be the cause of the spider's disintegration. I dunno...u must ask KC what actually happened.

Jerry Yong <jerry.yong@gmail.com> wrote:

we all har har the spider outside the mouth la. But kc must be
very ng lan soon after losing that match, and went put the spider
deeper into his mouth. His eyes sure pop out when he didn't see the
spider when he took his finger out. I still wonder whether he could
feel the spider crawling inside his mouth

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Added on August 23, 2008, 1:27 pmHere is a follow up email from Walter which i suggested to answer in the forum so that others can read and comment too, and he said "Sure".

> --- On Mon, 8/18/08, Walte r Ta n <kingfisher900@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Walte r Ta n <kingfisher900@hotmail.com>
> > Subject: RE: jumping spiders
> > To: adrianlwk@yahoo.com
> > Date: Monday, August 18, 2008, 6:07 AM
> > Hi Adrian,
> >
> > Thanks for your email of 10th Oct.
> >
> > If you have a bit of time, I would appreciate you comments
> > on the following statements regarding jumping spiders.
> >
> > 1. Spiders are found where there is lallang grass, low
> > shrubs and hedges and the land is left unattended for some
> > time.

If you're talking about jumpers in general, then yeah, they can be found in these places and a lot more! esp in large trees and of cuz around houses too, but usually those aren't so attractive. Wheather attended or unattended is debatable cuz jumpers can be found in very tended gardens too. The most important thing is there are insects around.
If you're talking about Thiania aka fighting spiders(although many others also fight), then i doubt u can find them in lalang...

> >
> > 2.The larger the leaf the bigger the spider can grow.
> > Different leaves breed different fighting quality in
> > spiders. Tree spiders are very strong, also bamboo and
> > lallang spiders.
> >

Yes, most of the time u'll prob find larger males residing in larger leaves. But it is a chicken and egg thingy. I doubt it is the leaf that cause they to grow larger but could be a larger male will tend to chose a large dwelling place? Or maybe a larger leave provide more surface area for insects to walk on, hence they get more food. Or prob a larger leave means a more secure house, and the larger male discovering one will be able to win the place.

Certainly leaf type would prob affect the success of brooding and home security which will affect the vigor of the population.

Again if ur talking abt general jumpers, then i think strength depends more on the species of spider rather than the place. But if fs, i seldom find them in trees except low lying kelapasawit and coconut trees. If u read some of my catching experience and viper's, u can see not neccesary kelapasawit spideys are better.

> > 3.Of the different colors or ' pow ' the strongest
> > are the black ones followed by the blue then green. The
> > fiercest spiders are those without a nest and moving around
> > all the time, the so called ' hung kai ' pow. Next
> > comes the male and female found together in one nest or kang
> > and boo.
> >

I guess now u're refering to fs. As i have mentioned before, the darker color tend to win lighter ones only because darker color is more matured. But when they get too old, darker color cant win a young male at its peak. i doubt blue or green makes a difference. I have caught blue ones that is lousy.

Moving around is a usual behaviour of males in breeding prime. Maybe that's why they are probably more motivated to win a fight.
Again, a male in a couple spider dwelling place is also in breeding prime. It prob has proven that by chasing another male out.
I don't agree though, that the sequence of placing color, then movement and wheather it stays with another female ranks the ferociousness of a fs.



> > 4. The best fighters are the jumping spiders that keep
> > jumping all the time and are very difficult to control.
> >

Nope. Caught ones like that which cant fight.

> > 5. Have you tried breeding spiders in captivity, n if you
> > hav, can you share with me how it is done.
> >

Yes i have tried. You can see some of my attempts in this forum earlier on. I will share more when i'm successful.

> > 6. Are there many spider habitats in Malaysia ? In Spore
> > spiders habitats are fast disappearing. When I was young
> > large gardens where the shrubs n hedges are not tended is
> > where you can find spiders.
> >

You bet, Malaysia still have plenty of greens but of cuz the same happens in many areas here like in Singapore as humans continue to expand their dominance over all other creatures.

> >
> > Thanks and hope to hear from you
> >
> > Walter

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Aug 23 2008, 01:33 PM

Telamonia males are black, very different in colour than the females, just like the Bavia aericeps.

I am very impressed with Jess' blog. I didn't go back to the posts last year, but I learned something just by reading them...the behavioural differences between males and females, how slings/bubs die inexplicably, genetic differences even from the same batch of eggs. She even has the setup like yours, but with fake green plants rather than blue plastic cards.

The best thing is, after looking at the Hyllus diardi pictures, I can positively confirm that the white/grey jumper I saw many years ago was of the same type. It was one of the two biggest spiders I've seen. The body length was probably over 1 inch/2.5cm long. And she did move very slowly, just like what Jess described.

As far as leaf size goes, I have a feeling it's more of a belief rather than a fact that larger leaves house larger FS. I think as long as the leaves are of sufficient size, it will have FS of all sizes. The habitat does influence the colour of the FS, natural camouflage of the surroundings. I agree the the colour isn't really a good indicator of a good fighter. Regardless of colour, chops rank right at the top for their fighting skills.

I am now keeping two slings. They're house spiders so it's nothing interesting to look at, but they're the only jumping spiders that I can find here. I'm going to document how long they live and how many times they moult. It's been a chore finding insects small enough for the tiny one. Even the smallest aphids are too thick skinned. It would try to pounce on one, then bounce off because the fangs are too small.

Food for the sling, we are aided by a bird farm in Singapore. They sells "pinheads". Very small sized crickets for the slings.

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Added on August 25, 2008, 9:05 amThose two pics of are the male of the Hyllus semicupreus. The newcomer is the same size as Mina, I have another female, slightly bigger than Mina, but this time, I won't make them fight again....



This post has been edited by centaurfly: Aug 25 2008, 09:05 AM

Yesterday fs fight videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbxgDqVQ2zQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOS-pOJLll8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVA5FGtOl1M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al5EHWcUAAY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JV0_qZN75U


Centaurfly, you no longer let your FS fight? How Damien and Mauruder doing? No more new FS fight videos?
For me other spider species only nice to see them hunt n eat flies. Those spider hardly fight coz just kill each other most of the time.

I've shared many of my recorded FS fights and will let go my FS back into their habitat soon.

Cheers,
v_viper88

Off day. Did some leg work today. I've been doing some heavy surfing past couple of days on jumpers and found a whole lot of interesting stuff. Which got me having jumper fever. Didn't go far, because I'm having a cold and was pretty cloudy today. So I decided to look for some general jumpers. And you know what i realized? Searching for jumpers is HARD! Many of those other jumpers i caught before was mostly accidental encounters while hunting for T.Bhamoensis. But when you really want to search for the "other" jumpers, gees, can't seem to find any. I was hoping to get a large jumper like Bavia or Hyllus. Covered a pretty large area and looked at ground litter, tree trunks, leaves. Nil.

This was my hunting ground.

Abandoned and unkept rubber estate, soon to become housing, but still pretty vast and wild. No chance having Thiania here.
After 2 hours, all I found were these.


(liked this little guy, he's whole orangy gold and moved pretty slowly)
Saw a large but abandoned nest.

Pretty pathetic.

Before i left after coming out of the estate, I lingered around a "tembusu" tree next to a large water hole(created by construction) and to my shocking surprise, found a small, old, one-legged fs sharing a nest with the female of another jumper!

Can you imagine finding a fs in this environment? Wrong leaves, wrong place.


At the tembusu, also found a large nest with slings inside.

(compare to Nicey-average sized fs)
I wonder which species


Some others strange/colorful invert pics i took out of boredom, to show u how "wild" that place is.


A displaced orb-web spider, i think.


Originally I wanted to go back to an old spot where i saw some wild chickens and a fairly large SPOTTED jumper(can tell its a pregnant female) but couldn't catch then(I tried) cause it dissappear into a very heavy bush.. But today I went, that place became yellow road. Yup, new housing area. Jumpers(and many other creatures) are fast dissappearing.

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Aug 27 2008, 01:10 AM

wow!! great job "mindstorm" , you are a PRO...it reminds me of my childhood pass time game at my kampung . Now feel like going to catch jumping spider already...hahaha.

where you stay? im staying at Taman Miharja, Cheras. Where is the best place to catch jumping spider ya?

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Added on August 28, 2008, 1:20 pmwow!! great job "mindstorm" , you are a PRO...it reminds me of my childhood pass time game at my kampung . Now feel like going to catch jumping spider already...hahaha.

where you stay? im staying at Taman Miharja, Cheras. Where is the best place to catch jumping spider ya?

This post has been edited by dondesignn: Aug 28 2008, 01:20 PM

Not pro la, just enjoy playing with them very much. Somehow when hunting spiders, I seem to be in a state of "flow". As if nothing else in this world mattered, just me, nature and hoping to get a big one. Kinda mind-relaxing to me. Different ppl get it from doing different types of hobbies, like watching a tankful of aquarium fishes, running or yoga, playing some musical instrument, stuff like that. And when you do find one kingkong, then it's the adrenaline rush that I savor. Over my lifetime, I do have a lot of other interest which i pursued with passion as well, eg. used to spent hours catching fish in malaysian ponds and rivers during primary school, then fishing when older, in high school - hours playing tabletennis, practicing dancing, working my triceps in the gym(only for about 2 years unlike you, mangrovejumper), playing chess representing school, then hours on the road and pool when i was doing triathlons during uni, hours starcrafting during its heydays, unimaginable hours programming into dawn before my software release and then more hours fixing bugs, crazy days now and then rearing all sort of pets-mice, rabbit, dog, maggie, bettas, praying mantis, wild-caught scorpions, moinas(yes i know secret of breeding moinas in a tub by the tons) but i guess most of that(accept for one/two) i have to scrap due to time constraint. Can't pursue too many interests esp now working and about to build a family. But somehow I have always come back to fs catching. That's because it was my first real hobby i guess.

I remember I was about seven when i was introduced to fs. My father showed me one male(yes i remember it has white face!) in between 2 orchid leaves in my grandma's garden. I tried to catch it but it jumped out towards the roots and ran around the orchid "stem". I remember playing hide and seek with it, you know how fs(or any other shy jumpers) will scurry to other opposite side of whatever they're standing on so that you can't see it.
After that I remember i started catching all sorts of jumpers from my grandma's neighbour's rambutan tree and putting them all in one big empty milk tin with a translucent cover. I bet Telamonia was one of them. It must have been havoc inside. At that time i wasn't zoomed into fs. It was only when i was in Singapore during standard 2 that fighting spiders is like what Dota is to current generation of youth. There was a big unkept patch of land behind my house and i got all my kings there. During that time it was not uncommon to see groups of kids scouting creepers on fences, flipping over leafs, intruding people's garden, walking along drains and canals staring up at overhanging leaves. That's how this queer hobby stuck in me.

In terms of catching the best fs, I think Viper is the PRO.

Cheras should have since it is rather old township. Best place? In undisturbed shady wasteland with smooth leave plants i guess. You can see a lot of the pics posted by me and viper. I'm in puchong. Viper prob stay closer to you and he knows of places in cheras i think.

Nice, Victor is still talking about fs. Good post from Jeremy.
http://victorkoo.blogspot.com/2008/08/figh...-spiders-2.html
http://victorkoo.blogspot.com/2008/08/caug...t=1220005200000

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Added on August 30, 2008, 1:36 amI'm taking my own sweet time but I'm tech-ing up on my hobby. Just bought some raw materials this past few days to start construction. Hehe.

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Aug 30 2008, 02:10 AM

I've been bz for the past weeks with office works and got myself a new pda hp. The new Pda gives me alot a headache bcoz need to find software crack n firmware updates...
I've also released some of my veteran FS to the wild Celtel, Riper, Blackie and Razer. I've release them at female FS nest, hopefully they can mate and reproduce more FS later on.
Only keep Draco and GP.

Caught a new male FS from big leaves nearby my neighbour house. Name it as hunter bcoz saw it when hunting for food. Average size.. think about same size like GP.. maybe bigger abit.
Let the new FS fight with GP and Draco.

Good fight! Chop FS vs Normal FS (video blur coz macro mode din work properly)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEGBnOfJCL4


Think Hunter not ready yet when Draco chop!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EcKRbi5JNg

Mindstorm also pro at catching Large FS and chop FS.
Further up Cheras Menara Tinjau to Gabai Waterful should have some good place FS... i haven't try hunt for FS there yet.. tat place more like Kampung style place.. alot of trees etecs... Last time went to Menara Tinjau caught Giant Bu.


Now i need to fix my pda hp coz it crash after firmware update.. arrghh.. Trying to bring it back to life back since morning today..now can see some improvement.. hopefully can fix it so i can record more new FS fights later..

Cheers,
v_viper88

This post has been edited by viper88: Sep 1 2008, 10:51 PM

Good tactic and counter by Hunter. 13s. The retreat tactic is a new one. I'll list it under defense tactics.

Draco is much stronger than Hunter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZRHAwmoSV4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63xPkFVB7BI


Cheers,
v_viper88

Finally, today, I got some cricket pinheads. My sis bought some adult crickets a couple of week back and one female laid loads of eggs before it died.


This is day one of hatching. I compared its size to one of those common fast moving black ants and the pinhead is only slightly shorter than the black ant. Ain't that small.


Reddy is still around. It's 1 and a half months now since its last moult on 27/7/08. Still a second instar. Probably because i've been feeding it eratically. The food it takes got to be really really tiny. So here i test it with a newly born pinhead. Damn, the pinhead is longer.

It did try to jump on it, though quite reluctantly, but failed to hold on and the pinhead jumped away. So I have to stunt the pinhead by squishing it and offering it to reddy. Even so, Reddy didn't take it up instantly. Sort of hesitant. But after much coaxing(using a strand of hair to push the half dead pinhead around), I finally got it to bite. Good thing is pinheads are more soft bodied than the similar sized black ant.


Looks like pinheads may be better suited for a larger instar of fs. Maybe newborn slings of Tarantulas and large jumpers like Hyllus can take them on easily but not fs. Fs tiny slings still require smaller preys.

This post has been edited by mindstorm: Sep 14 2008, 04:49 PM

Hi Mindstorm,

Based on my own experience, even adult FS, especially the males, are reluctant to grab cricket nymphs their own size when they are out of their nest. I have offered cricket nymphs to Labrador, Goblin, Damien....to name a few, they scram when the nymphs start moving. I then push a nymph to a female that was brooding, it did grab the nymph.

If you managed to raise Reddy to adulthood, you'll probably be the first in the whole to have done that! And will be able to probably estimate the lifespan of the FS.

All my FS including Damien, Marauder has left me. I caught a fresh batch of 6 males and 1 female FS, yesterday. All the males were caught when they were wandering out in the open! Haven't name them nor put them to action yet.

Yeah, fs males then to be a bit fussy with their food. The prey most acceptable to them would be small flies like drosophila, flying ants and small gnats. Some of them wouldn't even take small ants or even mosquitoe. But i guess if they're hungry enough, that would be another story.

Maybe first in the world to declare it. Who knows there maybe someone else who have done that but didn't document it.

Wow, you seem to be catching a lot of them fs. Really populating ur garden? Any kingkong?

I've done a couple of trips myself today and yesterday. I'll leave the stories for next day cuz kinda late.

Hi centaurfly and all bros .. I am sg too.. used to catch almost everyday after school .. didnt know they still exist this days.. he he.. wanna organise catching spiders trip tom. .. i am off.. Daniel 8200 8000.. pls reply..

Mindstorm, Mangrovejumper & Viper88 are from Malaysia. I am about the only one is SG actively keeping FS other Salticidae, those we used to call "ghost" spiders.

You off, but I'll be working....

You can check with the Fighting spider group in the arofanatics forum, they had organised catching trips in the past. Though I havn't seen them updating for a few weeks already.

hi bro..i know they are from malasia.. ah ya wasted.. ya went to the thread arofanatics forum but no more updates liao.. any places to recomend .. i am off from 24/09 to 26/09 see if you can make it then.. cheers ..

I know a few places, that are confirmed to have FS.

1。 Bukit Batok Nature Park CP, I caught quite a few there.
2. Mt Faber (quite big, need to know exactly where in order not to waste energy)
3. Ang Mo Kio Garden.
4. Lower Pierce reservior CP, the whole stretch behind the petrol kiosk
5. Nee Soon Road.
6. Telok Blangah Green.
7。 McRithie Reservoir

I have caught at apprx 80 FS (Male + Female) from all of the above locations

hi bro.. thx alot.. wa so many ah.. you are the champion..

wow..this one look like a very gOOd fighter

yeah, it was. Unfortunately it escaped before reaching its peak.