Acocil

Acocil
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Crustacea
Class:	Malacostraca
Order:	Decapoda
Infraorder:	Astacidea
Family:	Cambaridae
Genus:	Cambarellus
Species:	C. montezumae
Binomial name
Cambarellus montezumae Saussure, 1857

Acocil is a species of crayfish native to Mexico, Cambarellus montezumae. The name acocil comes from the Nahuatl cuitzilli, meaning "crooked one of the water" or "squirms in the water".^[1] It is a traditional foodstuff of the Pre-Columbian Mexicans, who boiled or baked the animal, and ate it in tacos.^[2] It is found across a broad section of Mexico, "from Lake Chapala in Jalisco to the crater lakes of Puebla", and so is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.^[3]

References

1. Carlos Montemayor & Donald H. Frischmann (2007). Words of the True Peoples: Poetry 2. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-70580-7.
2. Lorenzo Ochoa (2009). "Topophilia: a tool for the demarcation of cultural microregions: the case of the Huaxteca". In John Edward Staller & Michael D. Carrasco. Pre-Columbian Foodways: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Food, Culture, and Markets in Ancient Mesoamerica. Springer. pp. 535–552. doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-0470-3_22. ISBN 978-1-4419-0470-6.
3. F. Alvarez, M. López-Mejía & C. Pedraza Lara (2010). "Cambarellus montezumae". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved November 16, 2011.