Attalea maripa in its own genus in 1940, which he named "Ethnora" in recognition of Aublet's as a pioneer of the anti-slavery movement. Recent work has favoured maintaining all Attaleinae in a single genus, "Attalea". "Attalea maripa" ranges from Trinidad and Tobago in the north to Bolivia in the south. It is present in Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. It is found in lowland forests and disturbed areas, on soils that are not usually flooded. The fruit of "A. maripa" are consumed by a variety of mammals. On Maracá Island, Roraima, in the Brazilian Amazon, fruit were
Geology of French Guiana the Paramaca series, which corresponds to a series of micaschists, aluminous paragneisses and black quartzites whose total thickness is about 1 km. The central granite massifs consist of granite plutons, granodiorites and quartz diorites dating from 2.05 to 2.15 billion years ago. The north of French Guiana corresponds to a synclinorium composed of the Paramaca series on which sandstone and fluviatile conglomerates lie unconformably. Shield rocks in Guyana are all dated between 1.6 and 2.5 billion years ago. The Quaternary lands are located in the northern part of Guyana, near the coast, unconformably on the Paleozoic lands. The coastal plains