Introduction and acknowledgements.

This article presents information about the International Conference on Coelenterate Biology. All but one of the contributions on neurobiology were part of a symposium on that subject. Three of the five presentations made in the session on Pioneers in Coelenterate Biology are published here. The symposium has its own introduction, which summarizes the contents of the 15 papers presented in it, and highlights the variability in coelenterates that makes them so interesting and challenging to study. Papers deal with pattern formation both within individuals and in the colonies that many of our marvelously varied animals form.