The type species, Astrocaryum aculeatum, was first described by German botanist Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Meyer in 1818 based on a specimen from the Essequibo River in Guyana.
It has been observed cracking various nuts and fruits such as palm nuts (Attalea and Astrocaryum spp.
Astrocaryum aculeatum is found in and around the Amazon Basin, from Trinidad and Tobago in the north, through Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, the Brazilian states of Acre, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and south through the Bolivian departments of Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz.