Unless you can get the crab all the way out of its shell and then look on its underside, then you will be able to tell if its a boy or girl. If your crab has two gonopores it means it's a … How Do You Know If a Hermit Crab Is a Boy or a Girl? A second way to tell the difference between males and females is by the shape of their “apron”. If there is a small dot on each leg then it is female. The female land hermit crab has … Male blue crabs (Jimmies) have a long, pointy apron as seen in the first picture below. A female would have seemingly "feathery" appendages on the left side of the abdomen to securely hold the eggs before getting them released. Even experts have a hard time figuring … They also feed well and are about and active often. Hermit crabs that are limp … The most reliable way to determine a hermit crab's sex is to search for the Gonopores, their presence or absence will tell you the crab's gender. Male hermit crabs don't have legs on their abdomen. Female hermit crabs have two small spots called gonopores that will be visible when you look at the top of your hermit crab's back walking legs. It is also believed that a male hermit crab has hairy legs, which is most noticeable on the 5th pair of legs. Gonopores are tiny round openings and can be found at the base of a hermit crab's last pair of legs. The girls will have to symmetrical dots where her eggs would come out. It actually is really hard for the average person to be able to tell the gender of hermit crabs. Some say that hermit crabs might even be able to change their gender during their lifetimes. "A female crab attaches her eggs to the fine setae on her pleopods using a gluelike substance." Don't listen to the person above me, Petco doesn't know diddly dik about hermit crabs. All hermit crabs have a large pincer and a small pincer. It's very hard to know for sure what the gender of a hermit crab is. (Fox, S. 2000) References: Harvey, A. if there is no dot then it is male. Actually I have found that is not that difficult, provided your hermit crab is willing to come rather far out of its shell for you. the underside of the hermit crab,next to the tail. And the boys won't have those. The colour and shapes of these claws only indicate species not gender. Hermit crabs that are healthy will move their antennae in a "healthy looking" fashion. the way to tell gender is to look underneath on the very last set of exposed legs. If has two holes near its mini legs, it is a girl.If it has multiple crosses, it is a boy. If you look at a crab’s underside, there’s a flap with a distinct shape. A demonstration on determining the sex of Dungeness crabs and showing the difference between them. Most crab-care books state that it is impossible to tell the sex between male and female land hermit crabs. This flap is referred to as the apron. here's a picture and more info on how to do it. 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