Percepção morfológica de animais aquáticos pela comunidade pesqueira de Acupe, Santo Amaro, Bahia: uma abordagem etnozoológica

Abstract

Ethnozoology has been used successfully in studies of the interaction between zoology andculture. In that body of knowledge, it is common to use a personal terminology to name different animal body parts; thisis known as body topography. The aim of this work is to understand the terms used by the Acupe fishermen (Santo Amaro– Bahia, Brazil) for some of the locally caught animals, analysing them from the perspective of folk knowledge comparedwith the zoological literature. The body topography was studied by presenting picture-cards (N = 100), showing imagesof swimming crabs, shrimps, crabs and fish taken from the scientific literature, to 68 fishermen. The folk terminologyrecorded was divided into three categories: polynomia, suggested function, and anthropomorphic analogy. In at least onecase (crab-catching), this knowledge translates into a method with ethnoconservation implications. The results showedthat the local fishermen have an extensive terminology to name structures and body parts and their functions, and in somecases this knowledge was comparable to that in the zoological literature.