The First Meet Up

Playing fighting spider alone wasn't that fun although I still continue to chat in the forum. One fine day, I decided to meet up with those guys from the fourm for a spider hunting trip. Edwin ( Koppao ), Yuda ( Yuda1987 ) and Ken ( Kenz691 ) from the forum joined the hunting trip on 1st May 2009 and we met at SengKang.

Before setting out for the hunt, we decided to give our present spiders a match. First was my 1st king against Edwin's spider and my first king won easily. Second match was my first king against Yuda's big spider.



It only lasted 3 chops. I was surprised my 1st king was able to withstand 3 chops from this fight as Yuda's spider is much larger then mine.

Next, Edwin challenged his deadly chopster against Yuda's fatal chopster and ended up with a draw. Both chopsters looked tired and injured after the match.



Haha the subsequent match of chopsters was mine against Edwin's chopster named Grey. Both ended with a draw match but a rematch showed my chopster did not dare to take up the fight anymore. I guessed mine lost.



After the match we headed down to hunt for fighting spiders and caught afew ranging from small to medium sizes. Most of the spiders we caught doesn't put up a good fight except there's one case where my newly caught spider (one teeth) fought with Edwin's newly caught spider that ended at least 7 chops.

The last spider which I caught got all of us a surprise. I spotted it and thought it was a huge one. When both Yuda and Edwin came to take a peep, both also exclaimed it looked huge (face only). When I brought it out then realised that its just an average size or small size spider. What took me in surprise was there was another male spider besides it. We tested fighting him with the companion spider and he won.

Next, I tested him with the one teeth newly caught spider (which put up a good fight earlier on) and well this 'brother' spider won again with a few chops. The following match was against Edwin's newly caught spider which resulted in 8 chops and he still hold on to his champion title.



After winning 3 times, we decided to try him out with Yuda's big spider and needless to say who was the winner. We all concluded that for his size he was a good and brave fighter.



After the match, it's almost 6pm and I had to bid Yuda and Edwin farewell.

*** Contributed by Trevally ***

My Passion for Fighting Spider

Since I was a kid, I used to catch fighting spiders in bushes and matched them against each other. It was a fun game where most of the children in the 60s, 70s and 80s loved it. As time goes by, children tend to sway away from this game. There are too many electronics games around and catching fighting spiders is not an easy game to play with. You have to endure walking under the hot sun, insects bites and not to mention watch out for snakes !

Oh yes, there is another thing that I forgot to mention. There is basically a lack of spider hunting spots in Singapore. Those green vegetation found at HDB estates, parks and nature reserves are prohibited by Town Councils and NParks. Catch at your own risk !

I rekindled my passion for fighting spider when MediaCorp TV broadcasted Fighting Spiders. That was in mid April this year.

http://fightingspiders.mediacorptv.sg/games_spiders.htm

After several google from the net, I chanced upon this thread where it was created by one malaysian guy who shown great passion for fighting spiders.

http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/608348

From there on, I joined the thread and started communicating with members there. I was glad that there were a few members from Singapore and that means I'm not alone. :)

The first few fighting spiders that I caught were from my workplace compound. The bushes wasn't that thick and mainly constitute of japanese bamboo. All and all, I caught over 20+ fighting spiders from that stretch of bushes. After segregating those good ones, the lousy ones were released back to where I caught them.

*** Contributed by Trevally ***

Thiania Bhamoensis 巴莫方胸蛛

Thiania bhamoensis is a species of jumping spider. It belongs to the family of Salticidae. In Singapore, we called it the fighting spider. This species of jumping spider is found in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Myanmar. A more detailed description on T. bhamoensis could be found on the below link.

http://rmbr.nus.edu.sg/rbz/biblio/50/50rbz143-151.pdf

There's another species of fighting spider which very much resembles T. bhamoensis. They are called Thiania Subporessa 細齒方胸蛛 which can be found in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The abdomen pattern of T. subporessa is different from T. bhamoensis and that's how you differentiate them.

The below link shows how a T. subporessa looks like.

http://nc.kl.edu.tw/bbs/showpost.php?p=108752&postcount=36

And this is an interesting link on the molting of a T. subporessa.

http://nc.kl.edu.tw/bbs/showthread.php?t=10614

T. subporessa blog

http://www.geocities.jp/g_spiderhk2006/

*** Contributed by Trevally ***