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 ***

A King Kong Pow or Hyllus Diardi - Fighting Spider Hunting Adventure at Thomson

Last saturday me, Jong71, Simone, Urahinuk and his friend went to Thomson to hunt for fighting spiders. Thomson used to be my childhood hunting ground as I stayed Toa Payoh when I was young. It had been a long time I didn't return to Thomson and I was kind of excited for this hunting trip. The weather was sunny in the morning till early afteroon and while we prepared to set off for the hunt, it rained. Not a good day I guessed but we still proceed to Thomson.

When we arrived, the rain stopped. The ground was kind of wet and the leaves was filled with droplets of water. That doesn't put us off and immediately we started to flip the leaves after spraying ourselves with insect repellent. Plenty of 'sticked leaves' but that was due to water sticking them together and not the spider web. We caught several male and female spiders along the route to where Simone caught Megatron.

The spot where Simone caught Megatron housed a large patch of wild pepper leaves. After searching for quite sometimes, we gave it up as the result was pathetic and Simone suggested we moved to the spot where he caught Laser.

We arrived at the spot where Simone caught Laser and it was much better then the previous. It's a long stretch of road with big yam leaves. Our morales went up again and we can't wait to land ourselves with some good size fighting spiders. During the hunt, we missed afew spiders and Urahinuk finally got himself a medium-large size fighter. That fighter was the largest caught on that day and won all the newly caught fighters !

Around 5+pm we were all shacked out and I was left behind while the rest were much ahead of me searching for fighting spiders. The sky was getting abit dark and suddendly from my left eye, I sensed that there was a big and black thing on my left and when I turned and looked at it, it was a big spider that resembled the shape of a fighting spider. It looked exactly like a fighting spider except it was almost black in colour. It lacked the iridescent green and blue hue. The abdomen was thin but it got two thick and long arms. The size was about 2 times of a large size Thiania Bhamoensis.

When I first looked at him, it really got me very excited. I thought I had spotted a King Kong Pow ! He was resting on a small leaf with arms spreading wide. I stared at him for a few seconds wondering if its a T. Bhamoensis and when I had finally decided to capture him, he jumped. Alas, I lost one big spider. Feeling unsastified, I waited there and searching for him. It was kind of dark and visibility wasn't that good. After waiting on the spot for 5 mins, there's still no sign of him and suddendly out of nowhere I heard a soft feminine whisper. Oh mine, I couldn't make out whether its a human voice or insects' cries. Not wanting to stay there anymore, I quickly moved to where the rest of the guys were and forsook about the king kong spider myth.


Some of the fighting spider matches held at Thomson.

Thomson Match 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRof3JzZP4c

Thomson Match 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YANxeqhYFE8

Thomson Match 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAA9McbFprk

Thomson Match 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpdkNTOT0lE


Another picture of Hyllus Diardi
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68268595@N00/3385156524


*** Contributed by Trevally ***