nuúruu ‘barbasco’, a cultivated plant whose long, slender roots contain [...]

• • ‘barbasco’, a cultivated plant whose long, slender roots contain rotenone, an effective fish poison that impedes the ability of fishes’ gills to extract oxygen from water. Iquitos traditionally used ‘barbasco’ in creeks, but would also occasionally use it in larger rivers or lakes, pounding a bundle of the roots either on the bank or in the bottom of a canoe and rinsing the white liquid from the roots into the water. Once affected, the incapacitated fish float to the surface, where they are gathered by hand, with fishing spears, or with hand nets

  Scientific Name

  Lonchocarpus nicou