This volume is in honour of Danièle Guinot (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France), and was born out of our admiration for Danièle’s immense contributions to her discipline. A total of 35 of her colleagues have contributed to this volume, submitting papers on those aspects of the Brachyura to which Danièle, herself, has significantly contributed – taxonomy, evolution, morphology, palaeontology and general biology of crabs.