Do crabs molt their shell?

[sssnake]

Do crabs molt (shed) their shell like a shrimp would?

[amcarrig]

Yup

[coaster]

I have a unknown crab in my tank for at least six month's if not a year since I set up. I cought the first two but this one is smarter than the rest. any way it molted last month and the next time I saw him he was at least a third bigger!
Maybe I should start trying to catch him again.
Darren

[sssnake]

When crabs molt does the entire body molt (including legs and pinchers) ?

This is what I found lying on my sand. I took it to my LFS. I was told it was a dead "Black Emerald crab" and it was not a good guy.

This is what I found:





...the belly side:




This morning I discovered an exact duplicate of what I show on the top pics moving about beneath a rock and he seemed bigger. So either the crab molted, or this is hitchhiker #2.

Was the guy at the LFS correct?

If not, what kind of crab is this?

[iam1]

dos it have red eyes

[amcarrig]

Crabs do indeed molt their legs an pincers. I don't know if the guy at the lfs was right or not but I'd be getting that crab out of the tank asap.

[acenia]

when my crab molted the different parts of the shell and legs where appart. it does look like a dead crab you could open the shell see if there is any meat? Its a Mithrax crab for sure just not sure about the emerald part though. I have never heard of a black emerald. Emeralds are usually green (the color of emerald), your's seem brownish. On the belly side up picture you can see colored spots on his stomach, emeralds have a uniform coloring on there belly. Check the joints on its pinchers, if you see some red in there its an emerald.

[Matt Rogers]

Funny I just went through the same thing with my Mithrax crab sssnake. I saw the shell out in front of the tank and thought it was a goner, then a couple nights later I saw a much bigger Emerald crab running around in my tank. Man it's shiny now too.

[rickzter]

Yep. pom pom molted once already. Another unknown species of crab molted as well.