HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I bought 6 small crabs at an expo a few weeks ago. They were sold to me on the cheap because they had had a rough transport - lost legs, lost claws. The guy said they were vampire crabs, but they wasn't as colourful as the ones I have, but with 53 sp of Geosesarma I figured he might be right.

On closer examination, I noticed the "face" was different and when I didn't find a match when I googled, I decided he had been wrong. In depseration I searched for red claw crab becauae that's what I could see - red claw, white tip, brown body.

After a bit more searching I think I have 3 Perisesarma bidens/Pseudosesarma moechi and 3 Perisesarma guttatum, but I'm not certain. With missing claws and maybe juveniles, it's hard to tell. I'm not an expert and don't know what to look for.

They seem OK though in the box I've got them in (until their new home is ready). They have water from my turtle tank but will have brackish in their setup. And they have eaten.

I can take pictures of them, but I'd like to take pictures that helps with the ID, so let me know what you need.

Get a picture of their back and face and I can run them past my pet shop lady. She's a lot better with ID than most and if she's seen them before she can tell me what they normally sell as. Since they are all imported nailing a specific ID can be sometimes impossible without knowing the location of the harvest.

Thanks! I'll do that

So, I went ahead and took some pictures. I put the crabs in a small clear plastic container, first without water, and then I added the water so they would be calmer.

Here are pictures of the one (of three) I think is P bidens:








And here is one of three I think is P. guttatum. It has lost four legs in total but is very fiesty and pushed my finger away with its claws.









I hope the pictures are good enough for an ID.

I asked her to check this thread as soon as she has a minute.

To me, they look more like a geosesarma species than a perisesarma. The first one may be bidens but I haven't seen them that pale before, their bodies are usually much much darker.

Do all three of each look the same? There can be a lot of color variation in crabs of the same species so if you have matching sets it can help narrow things down. It also does not help that they have chromatophores and can change color and pattern based on stress levels, time of day, exposure to water, etc. Are you seeing any changes, or are they always looking exactly like they do in the photos?

She thinks she saw similar coming in with things labeled "Thai Red", which should put the collection point in Asia.

I'd suggest checking out Chiromantes dehaani, Geosesarma peraccae, and Geosesarma nemesis.

They seem to look the same no matter what time of day, but they are in a temp home right now, so they can hide a lot. From my inexperiensed eyes, it looks like tow different spieces, but then sometimes there are differens in colour when age or gender comes into play (not saying that's what's going on here though).

I'll check out those names. Thanks a million to you and your friend

I had my fiddlers for four years and the females are basically unidentifiable. I still don't know what all I had! The males can be distinguished, but by very very small differences and I could never do it. I think at one point I had four species, but for all I know it was all the same one.

I'm sorry, but none of the three match completely. The Geosesarma mentioned have dark eyes, and both types of mine have light eyes. The Chiromantes doesn't seem to have red claws.

Geosesarma have a more cuter face... it's hard to explain... these ones have more wideset eyes, if that makes sense.

At least they belong to the Sesarmide

The latest lead is that they might both be Pseudosesarma sp.

Reptilian Feline wrote:The latest lead is that they might both be Pseudosesarma sp.

That looks really really close!

I found this while searching: http://www.panzerwelten.de/v/Pseudosesarma/ It's a German site, but they have loads of info and pictures.