What species of crab do I have?

[hjfabre]

Hello, this is my very first post. I live in Korea and normally only post there.

I wanted to find out the species of my newly adopted hermit crab, but the best answers I got from my Korean community were vague, at best.

I searched Google, Naver(Korean site), and Instagram for answers, but the closest species that I've found were Rugosus, and Pseudorugosus.

So as my last resort, I found HCA and registered just to ask this question.
https://imgur.com/a/FSHu5YO
What species of crab do I have?

Thanks in advance!
(Sorry if my English isn't great)

[CrabbyLover77]

Hi there!

Your hermit is so adorable!! I love the colors!!
As a guess, maybe it's a Coenobita cavipes? I'll tag some people on here that could probably give you a definitive answer.
@wodesorel @Motörcrab @curlysister @JoeHermits @aussieJJDude

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[curlysister]

I saw this last night, but am not good at species identification at all!

[CrabbyLover77]

I saw this last night, but am not good at species identification at all!

Aw shucks! That's ok, I'm not any good at identification either! Thanks for replying though.

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[wodesorel]

C. Rugosus, just in a dark color phase. There are photos of similar here: http://coenobita.e-monsite.com/pages/es ... gosus.html

[hjfabre]

Hi there!

Your hermit is so adorable!! I love the colors!!
As a guess, maybe it's a Coenobita cavipes? I'll tag some people on here that could probably give you a definitive answer.
@wodesorel @Motörcrab @curlysister @JoeHermits @aussieJJDude

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

Thanks for the answer. The colors are lovely, aren't they?:D



My old Cavipes.jpg

However, I'm sure that this one isn't a Cavipes, as I've owned and saw Cavipes in the past.
Thank you for tagging those people..! Have a nice day.

I saw this last night, but am not good at species identification at all!

As CrabbyLover77 said, thanks for the reply anyways!

C. Rugosus, just in a dark color phase. There are photos of similar here: http://coenobita.e-monsite.com/pages/es ... gosus.html

That's what I thought at the beginning, but as I did my research, I came to a different conclusion.



The top photo is my strange hermit crab, and the bottom one is my normal red Rugosus.

Can you spot the differences?

There are clear stripes on my hermit crab...



Whereas my normal Ruggie has no / faint stripes.

I asked about this in my Korean hermit crab community, and found out that this was likely characteristics of Pseudorugosus.

This is a photo of Pseudorugosus that a person from my hermit crab community owns.

While talking about my strange crab, she showed me her photos of her Red Rugosus.


As you can see in the two photos, there are no clear stripes to be seen on the normal Rugosus crabs.

However, I found another difference.


This is the claws of my strange hermit crab. It's claws are orange/red colored.


This is the claws of my red Rugosus. See the difference in color?

You could say, that this is just simply a color variation, and I thought this was the case - until someone from my Korean hermit crab community pointed out that they never saw a red rugosus with a different colored claw. According to this person, the claws of red rugosus were always gray/black.
Although I'm not sure if this is a fact, if this is indeed the case, that surely means that my strange little crab isn't a Ruggie.

So no, I don't believe that my strange little guy is a normal Ruggie. Thanks for the answer though..!

[wodesorel]

Color has never been an accurate way of determining species. It is entirely dependant on claw and eye shape, devoid of color markings. (Scientifically it's done through reproduction organs, but that usually requires the death of the crab so we use the next best option.)

[hjfabre]

Color has never been an accurate way of determining species. It is entirely dependant on claw and eye shape, devoid of color markings. (Scientifically it's done through reproduction organs, but that usually requires the death of the crab so we use the next best option.)

Thank you once again for the reply I understand what you're saying, especially since there are so many variations of color among hermit crabs. Even within the same species, there are many variations of color.

However... It's true that I've never seen a red Rugosus with a red/orange colored claws before. Even in my Korean hermit crab community, I failed to find a red Rugosus with claw colors other than black/gray(People in my community owns a lot of red Rugosus, so I've asked them). So I'm almost sure that it's a characteristic of red Rugosus hermit crabs. I'll be happy to be disproven though! I'd love to see a red Rugosus with red claws!

And when it comes to color markings...


I believe that there is a difference when it comes to different species, just like this. One is a normal Rugosus, and the other is Pseudorugosus(At least according to the petshop owner)