An international conference on “Fossil Arthropods as Living Animals” was held at the Royal Society of Edinburgh on October 25–27, 1984. Major international conferences devoted to fossil arthropods are rare events. The previous one, which was held in Oslo in July 1973 as a NATO Advanced Study Institute, resulted in a volume on “Evolution and Morphology of the Trilobita, Trilobitoidea and Merostomata” (Martinsson 1975). Participants in the Edinburgh meeting heard 28 contributions covering all aspects of arthropod paleobiology. Most are published as a special issue of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences (Waterston 1985). All four major arthropod groups are treated (trilobites, crustaceans, chelicerates, and uniramians), as well as trace fossils and some groups of problematic status.
