Gonopores are tiny round openings and can be found at the base of a hermit crab's last pair of legs. A demonstration on determining the sex of Dungeness crabs and showing the difference between them. They also feed well and are about and active often. Hermit crabs that are healthy will move their antennae in a "healthy looking" fashion. It is also believed that a male hermit crab has hairy legs, which is most noticeable on the 5th pair of legs. 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. The female land hermit crab has … Male hermit crabs don't have legs on their abdomen. 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. If there is a small dot on each leg then it is female. It actually is really hard for the average person to be able to tell the gender of hermit crabs. All hermit crabs have a large pincer and a small pincer. if there is no dot then it is male. The girls will have to symmetrical dots where her eggs would come out. If has two holes near its mini legs, it is a girl.If it has multiple crosses, it is a boy. And the boys won't have those. Hermit crabs that are limp … How Do You Know If a Hermit Crab Is a Boy or a Girl? the underside of the hermit crab,next to the tail. 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. Most crab-care books state that it is impossible to tell the sex between male and female land hermit crabs. This is also where the male reproductive organ is located. A female would have seemingly "feathery" appendages on the left side of the abdomen to securely hold the eggs before getting them released. This flap is referred to as the apron. A second way to tell the difference between males and females is by the shape of their “apron”. Male blue crabs (Jimmies) have a long, pointy apron as seen in the first picture below. A hermit crab that is gravid (carrying eggs) will look like the drawing by Alcock, below. Text from a personal email regarding determining the gender of a land hermit crab.Shared with permission. Don't listen to the person above me, Petco doesn't know diddly dik about hermit crabs. the way to tell gender is to look underneath on the very last set of exposed legs. Some say that hermit crabs might even be able to change their gender during their lifetimes. (Fox, S. 2000) References: Harvey, A. If you look at a crab’s underside, there’s a flap with a distinct shape. The colour and shapes of these claws only indicate species not gender. Even experts have a hard time figuring … 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. 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