3/26/2007

CREATURES FROM THE NOPAL CACTUS


The cochineal is an insect living as aparasite on the nopal cactus which yields a valuable colorant.

what is used is the dead body of the female Dactylopus. it is granular in apparence, similar to an

onion seed.


the origin of cochineal cultivation is thought to go back to the tenth century A.D. in the area presently making up the state of Oaxaca,an era in which its inhabitants gathered the insect

from the stems of the nopal cactus. A large variety of wild species as well as an enourmous

range of cochineal support this hypothesis.


fuente. Salvador Arias


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