This volume, detailing the biology of what are essentially subtropical and tropical animals, had its genesis during the winter of 1983–1984, during which time our home institutions in Massachusetts and Alberta were blanketed in snow. In spite of this unlikely environment (or perhaps because of it!), we turned our thoughts and research efforts once more to collaborative studies of cardiorespiratory physiology in land crabs. Although we felt we knew where to look for information on that particular aspect of their physiology, we frequently lamented the fact that there was no single source of information where we could learn about the other fields of biological research on land crabs that potentially impinged upon our physiological studies.

Having recognized the need for a scholarly volume on many different aspects of land crab biology, we then set about what we thought would be the straightforward task of assembling a group of experts to contribute to a “small” monograph on the biology of land crabs. After arbitrating (and contributing to) pitched battles among contributors about which animals were actually to be considered “land crabs” and how they should be classified, and, following the generation of several hundred pages of information and the collection of approximately one thousand references, there is now this single source of information on the biology of land crabs. Rather than suggest that this volume be regarded as the authoritative source, however, we must emphasize that contributors were constrained by book length to report only on selected aspects of their assigned topic. In fact, far more is known about land crabs than we had ever imagined at the outset of this project.