The PETA would probably be all over it, but I think it would be neat to stage insect (and arachnid) death matches. I got the idea because I saw footage of a scorpion fighting a Praying Mantis, and realized that this was one of those rare instances in the animal kingdom where the victor will readily devour the loser. I think Mantids, Scorpions, and Tarantulas would readily fight and devour each other, right? Heck, many scorpions will eat their fellow scorpion given the oportunity! :eek:
You have way too much time on your hands. 
If you never did this as a child, you lived a sheltered life 
We used to dig a hole, and make it have banked inwards edges, so the ants couldnt climb out properly. Then put in two big bullants (nasty ants in Australia, I don’t know if you get them elsewhere, but they’ll bring a man down). Fight is on, you pick your ant and cheer for it to the death Lots of fun, and I could see it still being fun in a sick and twisted way, especially with other types of insects as mentioned
Cricket fighting was apparently very popular in ancient China.
In seventh grade, we had to bring in some sort of bug-type creatures for an observation in science class. I brought in three crickets in a jam jar: one big one and two middling size crickets. They got along okay for a couple days, but one morning I came in and only the big fella was left. I transferred him to an empty jar and changed the bedding in the jar, only to discover that his cricket brethren were nowhere to be found. I was panicked. Two innocent little crickets were wandering helplessly around the school. I intended to release them back into the world when we were done, so they could get on their crickety lives. They weren’t in the science room. And then in the grass clippings at the bottom of the jar, I found the leg.
He ATE them. The big guy ate the other crickets. Apparently male crickets are territorial and cannibalistic. He was christened Hannibal Lector and was regarded with a wary eye for the rest of the project. A learning experience for all.
We used to keep Praying Mantises as pets–they’d sit in the window catching houseflies. My Dad always referred to the mantises as “Charlie.” When the mantis got restless and started to wander about the house we would figure it needed a mate and let it go. We never staged any insect wars, but the next day we would find “Charlie’s” remains on the patio. We knew then he’d found a mate.
Not insect versus insect, but hamsters will eat insects. You can buy crickets at the petstore or just throw in moths and things that have invaded your house. Our hamster Satan used to love to catch the crickets and bite their heads off. It was both cute and terrifying at the same time.
In Thailand they fight stag beetles, and bet big money on the outcomes of the fights.
When I was a kid one of the neighbourhood kids was…well a little bit gross.
Chris would pick up the dog poo we needed for evil plans, he would wee on the wicket to put off the next batter, he would jump in the creek to see how deep it was. Basicaly he did all the gross shit we didn’t want to do (YES he was the youngest of our neighbourhood group!) and insects suffered.
I’m almost sad at the way we “let” Chris eat crickets, smush snails (to see what worked best), lick slugs and let Preying Mantises crawl all over him…
He is a pilot now. Isn’t there some saying about the cream rising to the top?
Now I’m a big grown-up I tell people off for being mean to snails and preying mantis, yep just those 2. I’m an insect bigot.
I save spiders too.
ancient china mynass, it’s the national sport of shanghai. neighborhods will rumble over the outcome. seriously its a huge hobby. my 5 year old raises crickets for fighting.
Catch a spider then toss him into another spider’s web. Devilishly good entertainment.
I knew people that used to have fiddler crab wrestling matches. Toss two crabs into a shoe box and let the bout begin. I think the match was declared over when one of them lost a body part. This isn’t as bad as it sounds, crabs can grow body parts back. Had the victor only known he would be confined to fight again some day, while the loser was set free.
I was thinking about buying 64 Betta’s (Siamese Fighting Fish) and a web cam, then putting on a NCAA tournament style gladiator death match to be broadcast live on the internet. Two fish enter, one fish leaves; Fin to fin combat, people would pay money to see that right? PETA might be a problem, but I’ll tell them it’s just computer generated like Toy Story.
Sorry to hijack, but I just want to say that that is an absolutely brilliant name for hamster.
Now, I’m not condoning this or saying it’s right but I would so watch this.
That’s what I say. Make up downloadable tournament brackets, space the fights out over about a month or so, make up names, stats, and little bio’s about all the fish. Maybe even do some cheesy pre- and post fight interviews with the “fighters”, trainers, managers etc. I could even have news stories about steroid use, fish getting arrested, getting injuries in the off season. Make the whole thing look legit but still totally a spoof. Except for the actual fighting, that would have to be legit. Maybe Golden Palace.com could give me a few thousand to make this thing happen. I might have to do this.
Actually, I think it would also be interesting to see if you just dumped all 64 fish together at once. Which fish would come out the victor?
Sure, but then where is the drama?
Really, that could be fun too. With 64 fish all battling it out for aquarium supremecy, it would be easy to lose track of any one particular fish. What we would need is little jockey silks with numbers and/or patterns to make the fish easily identifiable.
The hungriest, I assume.
Nah, just make 'em little masks like Mexican wrestlers: that way you could give them cool wrestler names, too. You could be on to a winner here.
Speaking of fish. My dad had a large goldfish (carp) in an aquariam in his office, and someone brought him a small bass that they’d caught. Apparently they are natural enemies and got into a knock down, drag out. Both losing scales before seperated. They lived out the remainder of their life with expanded metal seperating them in the aquariam.
The Battle Royal (a cockfighting term that wrestling took to using) with Betas sounds fun.
Chinaguy, how do the crickets fight?