This work documents and analyses local knowledge and pratices on Goniopsis cruentata (Latreille, 1803) among traditional gatherers in Barra de Sirinhaém, a coastal village in the State of Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil. Local knowledge was registered through open and semi-structured interviews. Many aspects of behavior, taxonomy, external morphology, reproduction and feeding habits of the crustacean under study are known by the women who participated as informants. This local knowledge, which gives the informants the ability to perform their daily gathering practices, seems to be, in some cases, compatible with published scientific knowledge about the same issues.
ethnoecology; mangroves; Brachyura
