On the basis of the characters of footprint shape, a toe shape description method based on geometric characteristic values of toe image is proposed. Corner detection is carried out on toe region, and the characteristic points which can describe the toe shape are confirmed by the edge of toe image. Through finding characteristic points whose distances to the center are stable and which can distinguish different toe shapes and the correlation among them, the toe shape characteristic vector is built. On the basis of toe shape characteristic vector, a toe shape recognition method based on fuzzy neural networks is proposed. Firstly, according to the statistical distribution disciplinarians of different shape toe images, membership functions are constructed respectively from the angle, length and region parameters, and these values are used as single judgment factors. The comprehensive judgment vector can be obtained through the operation among these single judgment factors. At last, the distance vector between comprehensive judgment vector and four model vectors are computed to feed into neural networks in order to judge. Because the method based on fuzzy neural network can reflect subjectively and correctly the different shapes of toe image, so the total automatic recognition rate amounts to 92.80%.