Another Sub-Adult Male Moulted

Last week, Krauser passed me afew fighting spiders including 2 sub-adult males. One of them which is dull in colour and bigger then the other sub-adult male moulted last night ( 25th Jan 2010 ). He measured 7mm in body length and I hope there's still room for further growth. According to Krauser, he was caught at N** and I shall name him Ace. What surprised me was Ace after moulted, turned out to be bright and shiny !

The other sub-adult male still hasn't moult yet and 'she' measured 6mm. 'She' is quite bright and shiny and I hope 'she' could moult into a 8mm male like Spawn. Anyway 'she' was caught at Thomson.

*** Contributed by Trevally ***

Two Cases of Extreme Moults

Recently I have a 'female' fighting spider that moulted into a large size male fighting spider. I named him Spawn. Spawn moulted on 4th Jan 2010. When I caught Spawn, he was a sub-adult male which looked like a female. All sexually matured males have a white face as oppose to sub-adult males which still poccess a blackish face. To tell a sub-adult male from a female, you got to look at its palps. If the end of its palps look swollen, it should be a male.

Two weeks after I caught Spawn, the sub-adult male moulted into large size male. Spawn measured almost 8mm in body length. From my experience, I didn't encounted such size before with previous few moultings. All were medium small to medium sizes and they measured from 5mm to 6mm.

The other extreme moult was from a small sub-adult male. After 2 days I caught him, 'she' moulted into a very small male spider. He measured around 4mm in body length.

I only managed to keep Spawn for two weeks and he passed away peacefully.

*** Contributed by Trevally ***

Santa Claus Gave Simon A Big Late Christmas Present - Wolverine

It's Sunday and that was two days after Christmas. Most of us enjoyed a super long weekend. We decided to pay Thomson a visit again. As usual me, Ura, Jong and Krauser set off from Sengkang around noon time. It rained earlier on but the sky turned sunny pretty fast. We arrived and saw Simon was already there. Edwin joined us later on but I didn't noticed him as I was busy hunting for fighting spiders a distant away from the group.

This time round we didn't try the Sabretooth spot as we find that spot is depleting of fighting spiders. Today's harvest was good. Most of us caught at least 3 fighting spiders. I was one of the luckiest guy to catch a good size spider after an hour of hunt. I named him Escape because when I lifted a dry leaf, Escape jummped and went missing. After several minutes of waiting I spotted him again and manage to capture him. Today's trip I caught around 9 fighting spiders but only kept four and released the rest as its size wasn't that good.

It's around 5+pm and time for the matches. When me and Krauser arrived, the guys were already there preparing the fighting arena. Simon showed us his prized catch -- Woooo.... its a Large size fighting spider. Its head was big and arms were long. The iridescent shine on its body denotes the spider just molted recently. Two weeks ago Simon just lost a good size fighter and now he caught back another Sabretooth. He was really a lucky guy among us.


Today's matches recorded at Thomson.


1) Simon's Wolverine vs Escape - Wolverine won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1sVzW6BcNA

2) Edwin's 3B vs Reborn - 3B won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2KpHk4wXSs

3) Edwin's Sembawang vs Twilight - Sembawang won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRcKu4sdFtE

4) Krauser's 2C vs Edwin's Model - 2C won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsmGzSoCHqw

5) Krauser's 2C vs Edwin's Mystery - 2C won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQfcMjNeVbU

6) Simon Spar vs Edwin's Pride - Simon Spar won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFeI_NuPvtI

7) Simon 2nd vs Ura's Saino - Simon 2nd won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oh8FM6B5tE

8) Simon 2nd vs Edwin's FarmMart - Simon 2nd won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVjruPEToKU

9) Simon 1st Spar vs Jong's Onetooth - Simon 1st Spar won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-TArUNdBxQ

10) Simon Spar vs Ura's PA - Simon Spar won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUXa8VLA85A

11) Krauser's Joker vs Jong's Short Hand - Joker won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prWsYNsjw3I

12) Simon's Wolverine vs Ura's Kane - Wolverine won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iOI8MpiosM

13) Simon's Rain vs Ah Seng Chopster - Rain won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3tAGDWO588

14) Edwin's Model vs Simon 2nd - Model won.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-3v0FWUp4s

*** Contributed by Trevally ***

The Day Simon Lost Sabretooth

On 21th Dec 2009, me, Krauser, Ura and Jong went to Thomson for fighting spider hunting cum matching session. Weather for that day was cloudly and water might pour from the sky any moment despite it had rained earlier on. The foliage was wet and the ground was damp. We proceeded to the spot where Simon caught Sabretooth.

The vegetation looked good but we didn't manage to catch any good size spiders after an hour hunt. Simon, Ah Seng, Edwin and Vincent joined us later. We searched for another hour with no success and proceeded to match our fighting spiders. Just as Simon gonna brought out Sabretooth, he discovered it went missing inside its container. This incident spelt a major setback for Simon as Sabretooth was one good size fighter. Anyway we still proceed with the matches and hope that Simon could get another Sabretooth soon.

Below were the matches for today.

1) Twilight vs Simon's Spar - Twilight won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38kQxiIRkqA

2) Twilight vs Edwin's 3B - 3B won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFZo1U-tFtc

3) GI Joe vs Krauser's Chopster - GI Joe won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so1TCca3IrY

4) GI Joe vs Krauser's Fuyoh - GI Joe won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSsmiRx391o

5) Edwin's Spar vs Simon's 3rd - 3rd won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNqeQ7QO9Us

6) Edwin's 3B vs Simon's 3rd - 3rd won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1aJpPQQ3Nw

7) Krauser's 2C vs Edwin's Pride - 2C won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO7BvxHTDL4

8) Simon's Rain vs Ura's Kane - Rain won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa7lQqXBjC0

9) Jong's Goldy vs Edwin's Sembawang - Goldy won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2L1XlKZ4BA

10) Jong's Goldy vs Edwin's 3B - Goldy won
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu7v_mX3WeI

and match of the day

11) Jong's Pincer vs Seng's Bullet



*** Contributed by Trevally ***

Fighting Spider Hunting Adventure - The West

I stayed at the North-East side of Singapore and seldom gone to the west side to hunt for fighting spiders. Last Saturday, Simon proposed to try a new spot at Jurong Road together with Ah Seng's group. It was a long journey but our hopes were high. As we drove past the destination, we were joyed to see that its a long stretch of road with green vegetation on one of its side. There were CB trees along certain parts of the road as well.

We parked the car and immediately pounced into action. While waiting for Ah Seng and his friends to arrive, we tried the surrounding area near to where we parked the car. Simon and Ura headed straight for the CB trees while me and Jong went deeper in to the forest. After 20 mins, me and Jong were both empty handed but Simon and Ura got afew male spiders from the CB trees. I gave up the search on those soft leaves and headed for the CB trees. Besides the CB trees, there were some patches of wild pepper plants next to it as well. I guess I had no luck on that day as even on the CB trees, I caught none !!

Ah Seng and his friends arrived and we changed to another spot which was 500 meters further behind from where we parked our car. It was another CB trees area but not much spiders could be found. I lost one average size male. Just as I thought I had him, he slipped onto the grass patch. What a smart spider !

While the whole group doesn't seem to catch much spiders, we decided to head for Jalan Bahar which was not far away. Along the way, we saw some very nice stretch of CB trees next to the Singapore Omni-Theatre. The spot looked promising and we decided to give it a fast search. After 10 mins of searching, there was no sight of fighting spiders and we gave it up and headed for the targeted destination - Jalan Bahar.

We reached Jalan Bahar and it was already 5.30pm. Before the start of the hunt, Ura and Simon matched their newly caught spiders. It seemed that Ura's newly caught fighting spider from Jurong West was a potential good fighter.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6h6QHHQqMc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uFok5S10ug

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA_NY5JPLNc

I've been to this spot at Jalan Bahar twice and today was my third time here. Some of the spider kakis had caught medium-large to large size males here and this spot was considered the best spots in the past. Since the kakis had came here frequently, the spot eventually lost its glory. It was not like in the past where male spiders were abundant and their sizes were big. Despites all frequent huntings here, I still pinned some hopes that there would be big males somewhere around.

As I walked along the concrete pavement, I saw there were many insects on the undergrowth. Ants, crickets, green flies, mosquitoes etc. The abundancy of these insects in this area was the main factor to contribute to the sizes of the spiders. Since it was near to evening, I knew that most of the spiders would wander out of their nests in search of food. I did not search much on closed leaves but preferred to stay still and observed the bushes for wandering spiders. My best record was spotted 4 wandering spiders from the same spot !  After two were caught, I made a U-turn back to the same spot again after 20mins and saw another two emerged. The closed leaves on that spot were earlier searched and there were no spiders hiding and where could these spiders came from ? So the method of 'wait and observe' worked  and I caught several males within an hour. Though there wasn't any large size spiders caught, I was quite happy with the result as there was one particular male which was near to medium large size !


*** Contributed by Trevally ***

Fighting Spider Hunting Adventure at Sengkang Forest

Last Saturday, met up with Ken25 and Urahinuk at Anchorvale CC. While waiting for Ah Seng and Edwin, me and Ura decided to proceed to the forested area besides Sengkang Riverside Park to hunt for fighting spiders.

There were some constructions going on at the forested area but since its weekend, the activities had stopped. There's a path leading to the forest. We stopped at a small patch of vegetation (picture 1) along the way and was surprised that area produced quite a nos of fighting spiders. Within 20 mins, I caught one male and several females fighting spiders. While we were searching high and low for more spiders, I spotted a green snake and we immediately left that spot and headed further in to the forest.

Inside the forested area, there's a concrete road used by the construction vehicles and that provided us a path. We need not bashed into the vegetation and that gave us a relief. It was a quiet and hot afternoon. After the hot spot, we arrived at another hot spot that is near to a power or dunno what station. The fighting spiders over here wasn't that big. Most of them were medium - small with occassionally some medium sizes. At one point of time, I thought I spotted a big size spider. That was when I flipped a leaf that was not nested. The spider looked huge for split of a second and it disappeared underneath the leaf. I waited and finally saw that bugger emerged from the undergrowth. Oh mine, its smaller then medium size but how come at that instance when I lifted the leaf over, the size really looked huge ! It must have been my eyes playing tricks on me. Haiz... One thing I noticed that when you saw a fighting spider wandering among the leaves, it looks big and you only realised the actual size when you compared it with your exisiting spiders.


We proceeded further into an area where there were CB trees. To those guys who doesn't know what is a CB tree, it's english name is Dillenia Suffruticosa or Simpoh Air. How does it looked like ? Google it. CB tree derived its name from the shape of its leaves. See the picture http://www.flickr.com/photos/dedamselfly/294174005/in/photostream/ Does the leaf resembles a CB ? LOL ... The CB trees were popular among the fighting spider kakis. They caught most of the good sizes fighting spiders from this type of plant. The leaves are thick and it provides a good shelter for the spiders during rainy seasons. We were quite excited when we saw the CB trees but turned out to be a big disappointment. We only spotted 3 pathetic size females !!!

After the CB trees area, we proceeded deeper and results were poor. The forested area leads to Jalan Kayu but we stopped halfway inbetween as the road ahead is filled with big cylinders and bulldozers. Overall, the hunting adventure at the forested area near Sengkang Riverside Park wasn't fruitful.

*** Contributed by Trevally ***

Fighting Spider Hunting Adventure at Mandai

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and I asked an old friend of mine, Ah Soon together with Urahinuk to go Mandai to hunt for fighting spiders. We took bus 138 from Yio Chu Kang road bus stop and alighted somewhere near to OrchidVille.

There were some CB trees around the vicinity. The first stop consisted of yam leaves vegetation. I spotted one soft leaf on top of a big yam leaf and when I carefully flipped open the leaves, saw a male fighting spider. Just as I was about to cut the leaves, another male fighting spider appeared on the same nest. Both met and engaged into a fight. While they were fighting, I cut the leaves and there goes two male fighting spiders into the plastic bag. 一石二鸟 (one stone kills two birds ) ?

Later on , we ventured to the spot where there were CB leaves and caught quite a numbers of spiders. Sizes from medium-small to medium. We then turned into OrchidVille and there was a quiet road (lor lada hitam) leading to nowhere. The vegetation along the road isn't that good. Mostly soft leaves !! There was a long stretch of drain near to OrchidVille and we decided to explore it. Along the drain there were some soft bushes and trees. No sights of male fighting spiders except one or two females. We gave up after 20 mins of hunting and decided to proceed to another part of CB leaves spot (near upper seletar reservoir). Afew male fighting spiders were caught but the size was kind of miserable. We hunted till around 6pm and ended somewhere near Mandai Crematorium.



*** Contributed by Trevally ***