In this study, we describe a new species of Pseudoparacreptotrema (Allocreadiidae) from the mugilid Dajaus monticola collected in western Puerto Rico, where no allocreadiid has previously been reported, bringing the number of species in this genus to seven (five in D. monticola, two in Profundulus spp.). The new parasite species is distinguished from congeners by its overall size, oral-to-ventral sucker size ratio, pharynx size, cirrus sac, and oral lobe morphology, and by 0.64%–3.45% divergence in a 1019-bp alignment of 28S. We build on prior suggestions that the current concept of P. agonostomi likely includes multiple species and provide the first mitochondrial data (whole mitochondrial genome) as well as the complete nuclear rDNA array from Pseudoparacreptotrema to facilitate future phylogenetic work. Within the Allocreadiidae, phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial genomes and 28S provides conflicting topologies for the placement of Pseudoparacreptotrema and Allocreadium. The 28S phylogeny of six species of Pseudoparacreptotrema resembles that of four lineages of D. monticola in that in both host and parasite, Pacific coastal lineages branch earliest, and a Caribbean lineage is more recently evolved.

This article addresses whether responses to COVID-19 created opportunities for future policy change. We explore this matter by presenting a framework rooted in political economy and the literature on pandemics. We argue that the opportunities created by emergency responses are context-specific and that narratives, policy tools, and pro-equity state actors are variables that mediate emergency responses and future opportunities. We ground our analytical contribution on the emergency cash transfers deployed during 2020 following the COVID-19 outbreak in two contrasting Central American countries, Costa Rica and Guatemala. The paper promotes further policy discussion on the opportunities for progressive change in unequal contexts.

Salt works along the Yucatan coasts of Mexico and Belize provide a record of salt production for inland trade during the height of Late Classic Maya civilisation (AD 550–800). At the Paynes Creek Salt Works in Belize, production focused on the creation of salt cakes by boiling brine in pots supported over fires in dedicated salt kitchens. Underwater excavations at the Early Classic (AD 250–550) site of Jay-yi Nah now indicate there was a longer and evolving tradition of salt making in the area, one that initially employed large, incurved bowls to meet local or down-the-line trade needs before inland demand for salt soared.

This article contributes to broader discussions of early Latin American nation-making by focusing on the interplay among territory, sovereignty and human movement in nineteenth-century Central America. How did early Central American nations create sovereign spaces? And how did human movement in turn impact the meanings of bordered spaces? Drawing from constitutions, legal codes and archival documents related to the implementation of migration laws, the central argument of this article is that Central American governments typically treated free migration not as a threat to sovereignty but as an opportunity to reinforce sovereignty over the fixed spaces through which people moved.

As airborne lidar surveys reveal a growing sample of urbanised tropical landscapes, questions linger about the sampling bias of such research leading to inflated estimates of urban extent and population magnitude. ‘Found’ datasets from remote sensing conducted for non-archaeological purposes and thus not subject to archaeological site bias, provide an opportunity to address these concerns through pseudorandom sampling. Here, the authors present their analysis of an environmental lidar dataset from Campeche, Mexico, which reveals previously unrecorded urbanism and dense regional-scale settlement. Both characteristics, the authors argue, are therefore demonstrably ubiquitous across the central Maya Lowlands.

Here, we report the first sighting records of Bryde's whales in Nicaragua. Four sightings were made in 2022 during boat-based surveys off the southwestern coast of Nicaragua. Photo-identification, distributional data, dive times, and behavioural information were collected, and environmental parameters, including sea surface temperature, were measured for each sighting. Sightings included calf and non-calf groups displaying travelling (n = 1; 25%), milling (n = 1; 25%), and suspected feeding (n = 2; 50%) behaviours. Approximately 4 h of focal following allowed the calculation of short and long breath intervals. Based on our observations, the individuals were suspected of feeding in the area, based on the presence of feeding birds, feeding humpback whales, relatively high time-lagged chlorophyll-a, and observed general behaviours. Our findings indicate that this species may occasionally visit Nicaraguan coastal areas in search of feeding opportunities, and could represent a possible range extension of the Eastern North Pacific stock.

The global market for biologics and biosimilar pharmaceutical products is experiencing rapid expansion, primarily driven by the continuous discovery of new molecules. However, information regarding Latin America’s biological market remains limited.

The scholarship seeking to explain the ineffectiveness of violence against women (VAW) laws has focused on the lack of resources or will to implement these laws. Less attention has been given to how these laws are crafted and positioned in the legal hierarchy, which may undermine them from the start. This article focuses on four cases from Central America, a region where fifty-five laws to protect women from violence were passed between 1960 and 2018, yet VAW continues. It finds that the legal positioning and language of these laws prioritize family unity while undermining women’s rights to protection; thus, these laws fail by design. The article identifies four legal placements that delay (El Salvador), undermine (Honduras), diminish (Nicaragua), or render abstract (Guatemala) the effectiveness of VAW laws in the context of penal and judicial codes. This work has direct policy implications and broader relevance beyond the cases examined here.

La mayor parte de las mujeres traficadas para el comercio sexual por la frontera suroeste de Estados Unidos proceden de México y Centroamérica. Esta investigación, fundamentada en una metodología cualitativa, que incluye entrevistas en profundidad con cincuenta y dos traficantes de mujeres y ochenta y seis dueños de negocios de prostitución en México, analiza los vínculos entre los diferentes actores involucrados en el tráfico de mujeres de México y Centroamérica para el comercio sexual en Estados Unidos. Concluimos que estos actores ocupan lugares estratégicos dentro de una cadena de mando que tiene el propósito de proporcionar a los patrones estadounidenses una remesa ininterrumpida de mujeres. Los traficantes reclutan y transportan mujeres, mientras que los dueños de centros nocturnos de Estados Unidos se benefician de la explotación de la prostitución. Asimismo, esta actividad depende de la participación de madrotas y padrotes mexicanos, que reclutan y dan cobijo a mujeres en tránsito al norte.

The objective of this paper, based on interviews with 95 human smugglers (coyotes) involved in agriculture and 51 in prostitution, is to provide a comparative analysis of the networks transporting (mostly) male migrants intending to work in US agriculture and those recruiting women/girls for the US sex industry. Networks carrying females for sex work are bigger and use more fraudulent recruitment strategies. However, migrant smuggling for agriculture is not totally different from sex trafficking; similarities between the types of networks analysed dwarf their differences. Smugglers frequently use some form of deception to convince their would-be clients/victims to undertake risky journeys. I conclude that both networks are demand-driven. Smugglers serve the interests of US agribusinesses and sex business owners rather than those of the males and females they recruit.

The metal-mining boom Latin America experienced in recent decades precipitated highly contentious anti-mining social movements in Central America. In this context, El Salvador became the first country in the world to ban all metal mining by law. In contrast, policy in nearby Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua remained pro-mining. These cases are compared using a most similar systems design. Comparison reveals the importance of three variables: how national economic-elite networks and interests relate to multinational corporations; national movement coordination and goals, specifically in relation to prohibition; and how parties and leaders relied on popular bases or capital. These factors shaped the contention between elites and movements that influenced state actions around mining and led to this ‘least likely case’ of extractive policy change in El Salvador.

The history of the Cold War in Latin America in the 1970s is commonly split into two episodes: the establishment of anticommunist dictatorships and the ensuing repression across the Southern Cone in the early and middle decade, and the Nicaraguan Revolution and the eruption of violent conflicts across Central America at its close. By exploring the Chilean and Argentine response to the Nicaraguan Revolution, this article brings these two episodes together, demonstrating how they were understood to belong to one and the same ideological conflict. In doing so, it highlights the importance of the revolution in the Chilean and Argentine perception of the Cold War and explores how the Sandinista triumph directly shaped Southern Cone ideas about US power and the communist threat, also prompting reflection on their own ‘models’ for anticommunist governance. Both regimes responded by increasing their support for anticommunist forces in Guatemala and El Salvador, often conducting this aid through a wider transnational and clandestine network. This article contributes to new understandings of the nature of Latin American anticommunism in this period, challenges traditional understandings of external involvement in Central America, and demonstrates the need to understand events in Latin America in this period in their full regional context.