Horizontal starch gel electrophoresis was used to investigate the biochemical genetic structure of Chinese mitten crab Eriocheir sinensis and Hepu mitten crab E.hepuensis. Sixteen putative enzyme-coding loci were examined for forty-nine Chinese mitten crabs and thirty-eight Hepu mitten crabs. Nine loci, AAT-1 *, AAT-2 *, G3PDH *, GPI *, IDHP-1 *, IDHP-2 *, MDH-1 *, MDH-2 * and PGM *, are polymorphic in Chinese mitten crab, and seven, AAT-1 *, AAT-2 *, GPI *, IDHP-1 *, MDH-1 *, MDH-2 * and PGM *, are polymorphic in Hepu mitten crab. The proportion of polymorphic loci and the expected heterozygosity are 0.562 5 and 0.080 3 for Chinese mitten crab, and 0.437 5 and 0.075 4 for Hepu mitten crab. The Nei’s genetic distance between two species is 0.002 4.