Endocrine disruption has emerged as a new subdiscipline of environmental toxicology.  Increasingly, attention is being paid to endocrine functions in invertebrates, particularly crustaceans, that are being disrupted by environmental contaminants.  Almost all of the recent reports on endocrine disruption in crustaceans deal with their sexual development, reproduction and growth.  This review consists of an overview of the current status of research on endocrine disruption of crustaceans.  Suggestions for future research directions in the area of crustacean endocrine disruption are also presented.  There is, for example, a need for more attention to be given to elucidating the endocrine mechanisms of lower crustaceans, such as copepods and cladocerans, given the fact that the vast majority of what is known of crustacean endocrine mechanisms has been derived from studies of decapods.  Care must be exercised in extrapolating to crustaceans the results of endocrine disruption studies with vertebrates because of the many differences between the endocrine systems, especially the hormones that are secreted, of these two groups of organisms.