Abstract: Despite 470 years of contact with Spanish-speaking colonial powers, members of the Zapotec-speaking community of San Juan Mixtepec in the Sierra de Miahuatlan, Oaxaca, Mexico, have conserved largely intact an extensive body of knowledge about their natural environment. We have recorded to date 868 named plant (of which 520 are generics) and 443 of animals (of which 256 are generics). Eighteen percent of generic plant name elements are Spanish loans, which compares favourably with other conservative systems of traditional biological knowledge in southern Mexico. Mixtepec Zapotec animal classification appears to be relatively less developed than the botanical. We describe the Mixtepec Zapotec classification of oaks (Quercus spp., Fagaceae) to illustrate how precise this classification may be. Mixtepec Zapotec botanical names are routinely prefixed to the names for the generic and specific they include.Resume: En depit de 470 annees de rapports avec les pouvoirs coloniaux hispanophones, les membres de la communaute zapotheque de San Juan Mixtepec dans la Sierra de Miahuatlan, Oaxaca, Mexique, ont reussi a conserver une grande somme de connaissances traditionnelles concernant l'environnement naturel. Nous avons consigne jusqu'a present 868 taxons de plantes nommes (dont 520 sont des taxons generiques) et 443 d'animaux (dont 256 sont des generiques). Dix-huit pourcent des elements constitutifs des noms generiques de plantes sont des emprunts a l'espagnol, une situation qui supporte avantageusement la comparaison avec celle d'autres systemes conservateurs de savoir biologique traditionnel dans le sud du Mexique. La classification mixtepeque zapotheque des animaux apparait relativement moins developpee que celle des vegetaux. Nous decrivons la classification mixtepeque zapotheque des chenes (Quercus spp., Fagacees) pour illustrer la precision du systeme vernaculaire. Les noms des formes du vivant darts le systeme botanique zapoteque mixtepeque sont communement prefixes aux noms des taxons generiques et specifiques qu'ils incluent.Dedicated to Donato Acuca Vazquez, 1969-98, promising Mexican ethnobiologist and esteemed colleague.IntroductionBerlin's bold statement of general principles of ethnobiological classification and nomenclature (Berlin, 1992) defines a baseline of information all systematic ethnobiological studies should establish. An adequate ethnobiological account should list all plant and/or animal categories that merit more than idiosyncratic recognition within the community studied. In most, but not all cases, categories so recognized will be consistently named. This initial step involves defining the referential meanings of all plant and/or animal names used in the community. A large majority of such names will label basic categories or generic taxa. A certain percentage of these basic categories will include consistently named subdivisions, or specific taxa. Finally, a few broadly inclusive life-form taxa may also be named. Thus, in addition to characterizing the referential meanings of all these names, the taxonomic rank (e.g., folk generic, folk specific or life-form) of each named category should be established as far as inherent ambiguities allow. The researcher may then (or more commonly in practice, simultaneously) elaborate for all folk biological data about the scientific referents of each, such as phenological and distributional data, and sociocultural data such as the pattern of distribution within the community of knowledge of plants and animals, their uses and their ecological interrelationships.We sketch here preliminary results of an ethnobiological study in San Juan Mixtepec, a Zapotec-speaking community in the district of Miahuatlan, state of Oaxaca, Mexico (Figure 1). Zapotecan is a language family which includes an indeterminate number of languages (estimates range from four to 54) spoken today by some 400 000 people in over 250 distinct communities, the vast majority in the state of Oaxaca (INEGI, 1995). …