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Forget iPhones or Nintendo Switches, children in parts of the Philippines rely on a completely ... [+] different source of entertainment. Hint: It involves a venomous animal.
If you were to attend school on the island of Mindanao—the second largest island in the Philippines—you might notice that some of the boys have matchboxes in their pockets. Inside the matchboxes, you wouldn’t find matches, however. You’d find “derby spiders”—which is a generic name used to describe various species of spiders used in the animal blood sport of “spider wrestling.”
Spider wrestling, as it is traditionally practiced in the Philippines, involves putting two female spiders at opposing edges of a narrow stick (one that resembles a long chopstick). The spiders race towards each other, meeting in the middle of the stick, and engage in combat until one spider emerges victorious—either by knocking the spider off of the stick, injuring the spider or wrapping it in a cocoon of spider silk.
The most common type of spider used in Mindanaoan spider wrestling, according to one research paper, is Neoscona vigilans, whose common name is the brown-legged spider or tiger-tiger.
Neoscona vigilans is an orb-weaving spider that inhabits areas such as agricultural fields, gardens and forested environments. The species is nocturnal, hunting its prey during twilight and typically consuming it by morning. Orb-weaving spiders are known for crafting intricate and highly organized webs to hunt prey. The structure of its web varies throughout the year, with changes in its angle, height above the ground, line density and magnetic orientation, all influenced by seasonal shifts. Despite these variations, the spider maintains the core symmetrical pattern of the web.
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