The purpose of this research is to imitate the motion of the crab, and to propose a new control strategy for hexapod robots. Referring to the proportion of a real crab, we construct a 12- actuator hexapod robot. Walking experiments are achieved by using a tripod gait, a metachronal gait and a paired metachronal gait. We observe the loading of actuators and compare the functionality of the gaits. A special feed-forward gait and the Zero Torque control strategy are added in the climbing experiment. A compressed rubber-wire carpet and wire dactyl claws are used to simulate the non-slip climbing condition. Our experiment results show that the loading condition of the pendulous tripod gait is better than conventional tripod gait, and the paired metachronal gait is better than metachronal gait. During climbing experiments, our robot walks on a vertical, an upside-down, and two transitional terrains.