paca Agouti paca, an American animal with a range from Mexico to N. Argentina, which is regarded by some authorities as the tastiest of all rodents. The scientific name may lead the unwary to confusion with the agouti. In Venezuela, they are known as lapa. McGovern (c.1927) declared: ‘I would trade all the beefsteaks and roast chickens in the world in order to banquet off one once more.’ An observer among the Indians of Guiana in the 1880s had already declared that both the Indians and the colonists esteemed the flesh more highly than that of any other animal.
