The present volume contains papers of presentations form the 5th International Congress on Rudists held in Erlangen, Germany, 1999. Rudists are a group of box-, tube-, or ring-shaped marine bivalves that arose during the Jurassic and became diverse during the Cretaceous. The main theme of the scientific sessions included rudist taxonomy, palaeoecology, bioconstructions, biostratigraphy, sedimentology of rudist strata and general topics.