Thiania bhamoensis - Jumping Leaf Spider

This jumping spider was once popular during my primary school. It is known as Thiania bhamoensis and can be found in South East Asia. Its fighting ability(males) when meeting each other was the reason why we rear them as pet and compete for 'first king' status.



It is easy to distinguish between the male and female. The frontal view of the male is white while the female is black.


Male

Female

This eight legged arachnid lives between two leaves after binding them together with vertical strand of silken retreats. They can be found on many kind of plants and I prefer to find them on the spider lily leaves.


The size of this spider is barely bigger that our thumb nail.

The fight can be brief to a couple of minutes long. Typically, it started off with a dancing act of the two males showing off like a scorpion posture with the butt bent to one side and slowly approaching each other. Once they meet, both males will extend their frontal legs and mandible to push or sparring against each other. The fight ended with the retreat of the weaker one.





I came across a forum mentioning some rare males show no interest to fight. This type of male spider seldom display the dancing act and only interest to attack and kill. It may just rush to its opponent, grab and try its luck to bite the weak side of its opponent body i.e abdomen.


It is tricky to catch this tiny creature as it is agile and will leap away swiftly when senses threat. With patient and skill, this will not post a big problem to catch them. Each spider is kept in a well ventilated container with some fresh leaves for this spider to build a home. Ensure dripping some fresh water droplets for the spider to drink as it gets thirsty easily.


It will hunt for life insect smaller that its size i.e mosquito. It can be fooled easily with dead insect as meal by dropping them into its home. Once this spider is comfortable, it will not leap away as crazy as it did during the catch.

From top view, the thorax of the spider exhibit various colours. The colour that I came across was green, blue and to the rarer ones, black. It was a common belief that the black males are the most aggressive.


When the male meet its opposite sex, the behaviour is different. It started off by extending its frontal leg and vibrates. Once approaches the female it will start poking the female face. But, the fun part is that this male spider can be fooled by immediately interchange the female to another male. It will still think its opponent is a female and continue to poke its opponent while the opponent try to fight him. After a couple of poking, then it started to realize and the actual male sparring begin.

I guess this sort of interest is not known to many children nowadays. I was fortunate enough to experience it and had the opportunity to learn more about this spider behaviour.