gibnut

plural gibnuts

1. BelizeA paca (“a large rodent of the genus Cuniculus native to Central America and South America, which has dark brown or black fur, a white or yellowish underbelly and rows of white spots along the sides”).

   One reason people come to Belize is for adventure. That's why you might want to try gibnut, bamboo chicken and cow's foot soup.

   1993, Richard Harris, Stacy Ritz, edited by Joanna Pearlman, The Maya Route: The Ultimate Guidebook: Yucatan, Belize, Guatemala, Cancún, Berkeley, Calif.: Ulysses Press, →ISBN, page 359

   5 more examples

   The woods abound in game and wild animals, the small red deer, ten varieties of wild hog, the peccary (Dicotyles labiatus) and waree (a mere variety), the paca (Cœlogenys subnigra), a burrowing animal locally called gibbonet or gibnut, considered good eating; [...]

   1883, Archibald Robertson Gibbs, “The Labour Question—Climate—Productions—Flora and Fauna—and General Features”, in British Honduras: An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Colony from Its Settlement, 1670. […], London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, […], →OCLC, page 185

   We have some splendid game in these woods, among which is the gibnut, a beautiful little animal, which, when cooked, tastes very much like a nice, fat little pig. [From the New York Sun.]

   1884 August 23, “In the Honduras forests”, in D. P. Kingsley, editor, Grand Junction News, volume II, number 44, Grand Junction, Colo.: Price & Kingsley, →OCLC, page 4, column 3

   On digging in the earth in this cave, we found the arm and leg bones of a single skeleton. [...] We also found the lower jaw of a gibnut and of another small rodent, but no other bones.

   1895 May 16, T[homas] Gann, “[Notes on the Exploration of Two Mounds in British Honduras]”, in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, volume XV (Second Series), London: Printed by Nichols and Sons, for the Society of Antiquaries [of London], […], →OCLC, page 433

   While hunting for a gibnut he traced one to a hole in the ground; on poking a stick into this hole, he was astonished on withdrawing it to find that he had brought out on its end a small painted pottery cylinder. The hole on being enlarged proved to be the entrance to a chultun, one of those curious underground chambers cut in the limestone rock found throughout Yucatan and the northern part of British Honduras, especially in the neighborhood of ruins.

   1918, Thomas W[illiam] F[rancis] Gann, “Description of Mounds [Mound No. 41]”, in The Maya Indians of Southern Yucatan and Northern British Honduras (Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin; 64), Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 138

   The three men had bagged an iguana and two gibnuts. Except for the spots on their backs, the gibnuts resembled twenty-pound guinea pigs.

   2009, Joan Fry, How to Cook a Tapir: A Memoir of Belize (At Table series), Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, →ISBN, page 77

   Synonyms: gibbonet, jungle rat, royal rat