HCA: Hermit Crab Association

MotleyMusicana wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 12, 2022 10:34 pm

Hi! Welcome back!

If you know your image's url, you can click the "add image" button (it's in the menu when you make a new post). It will paste in a code with two sets of brackets. all you have to do is place the url between the brackets. or you can just type the code in without hitting the image button

Your crab is probably an ecuadorian or a caribbean hermit crab. Ecuadorians generally come in shades of brown and tan. Caribbeans (also known as purple pinchers) are reddish orange in color, and their pincher claws come in shades of purple. Both species require about the same care, although caribbean hermit crabs prefer shells with O-shaped openings and ecuadorian hermit crabs prefer D-shaped openings. Feel free to share some pics!

Also, if you happen to catch your hermit crab changing shells, you can determine its gender by looking at its abdomen. Males have smooth abdomens that have no protrusions besides their appendages. Females have pleopods (root-like protrusions coming from their abdomen--this is where females store their eggs!). Females also have gonopores and males do not, although trying to gender a hermit crab by their gonopores can be difficult. Gonopores are small holes near the base of a female's third set of legs that function as the animal's genital pores for the purpose of mating. Males are also said to have more hair then females. Hermit crabs have small hairs along their bodies, but males typically have way more of these hairs than females do.

welcome to crab keeping!