Life and health

Cepphus

Cepphus is a genus of auks (guillemots) with three species: black guillemot (C. grylle, Atlantic/Arctic), pigeon guillemot (C. columba, North Pacific), and spectacled guillemot (C. carbo); inshore, wing-propelled divers that lay two eggs.

Ceprano

Ceprano calvarium (Ceprano Man), a fragmentary Middle Pleistocene human skullcap found in 1994 near Ceprano, Italy; re-dated from 800-900 ka to about 430-385 or 353 ka; classified as archaic Homo heidelbergensis.

Ceralasertib

Ceralasertib (AZD6738) is AstraZeneca's oral ATR kinase inhibitor for cancer, studied as monotherapy and with paclitaxel, carboplatin, olaparib, and durvalumab; the LATIFY phase III NSCLC trial missed its OS endpoint.

Ceramidase

Ceramidases (EC 3.5.1.23) are enzymes hydrolyzing ceramide into sphingosine and fatty acids; five human types (acid ASAH1, neutral ASAH2, alkaline ACER1-3) regulate cell survival signaling, Farber disease, and cancer drug resistance.

Ceramide

Ceramide, a sphingolipid of sphingosine plus a fatty acid, is a membrane building block and signaling lipid driving apoptosis, insulin resistance, and cancer cell death, with serum ceramide scores used clinically for cardiovascular risk stratification.

Ceramide-activated protein phosphatase

Ceramide-activated protein phosphatase (CAPP): PP1 and PP2A (later PP2C) directly activated by ceramide; discovered early 1990s by Hannun's group; stereospecific for d-erythro ceramides; links ceramide to apoptosis and insulin signaling via Akt dephosphorylation.

Cerastes

Cerastes, the Old World horned vipers, is a viperid genus of North African and Arabian desert snakes including C. cerastes, C. gasperettii, and C. vipera, known for hemotoxic venom, sidewinding locomotion, and antivenom challenges.

Cerastes cerastes

Cerastes cerastes, the Saharan horned viper, is a venomous desert snake of the Sahara with a single horn scale above each eye, burying itself in sand.

Cerastium

Cerastium (mouse-ear chickweed, chickweed) is a cosmopolitan genus of Caryophyllaceae herbs published by Linnaeus in 1753, type C. arvense, with about 100-218 species, white notched petals, and capsules opening by apical teeth.

Cerastoderma edule

Cerastoderma edule, the common or edible cockle (basionym Cardium edule), is a Cardiidae bivalve of northeast Atlantic estuaries, harvested at up to 24,626 tons in Europe in 2017 and susceptible to Marteilia cochillia, unlike C. glaucum.

Cerastoderma glaucum

Cerastoderma glaucum, the lagoon or olive-green cockle (also Cerastoderma glaucum (Poiret, 1789)), is a brackish-water Cardiidae bivalve of European lagoons, tolerating salinities from about 4 to 70 and distinguished from the edible cockle C. edule by shell ribs, benthic eggs, and short-lived larvae.

Ceratioidei

Ceratioidei, the deep-sea anglerfishes, is a suborder of Lophiiformes with 11 families and about 162 species, defined by dwarfed parasitic males, bacterial bioluminescent lures, and bathypelagic habitats.

Ceratites

Ceratites de Haan, 1825 is a Middle Triassic (Ladinian) ceratitid ammonoid genus with robust evolute, ribbed shells and ceratitic sutures, radiating in the Germanic Muschelkalk Basin; type species C. nodosus.

Ceratitida

Ceratitida (ceratites) is an extinct Triassic-dominant ammonoid cephalopod order defined by ceratitic suture lines, originating in the Mid-Permian, surviving the end-Permian extinction via Xenodiscus and Otoceras, with type genus Ceratites.

Ceratitis capitata

Ceratitis capitata, the Mediterranean fruit fly or medfly, a highly polyphagous tephritid fruit fly from sub-Saharan Africa; larvae infest over 350 host fruits, causing billions in losses worldwide.

Ceratocystis

Ceratocystis (Ellis & Halst., 1890) is a genus of Ceratocystidaceae fungi in the Microascales, type species C. fimbriata from sweet potato black rot; once confused with Ophiostoma, now split into many genera and including major tree pathogens.

Ceratomia catalpae

Ceratomia catalpae, the catalpa sphinx or catalpa hornworm (Boisduval, 1875), is a North American sphingid moth whose gregarious catalpa-defoliating caterpillars sequester catalpol yet are heavily parasitized by Cotesia congregata; larvae are sold as fish bait.

Ceratonia

Ceratonia is a small Fabaceae genus of two evergreen species, carob (Ceratonia siliqua) and C. oreothauma, native from the Mediterranean to Arabia and Somalia, grown for pods and locust bean gum.

Ceratophrys

Ceratophrys (horned frogs, South American horned frogs) is a genus of seven Ceratophryidae frog species from tropical South America, sister to Chacophrys + Lepidobatrachus, with powerful bites of 5-500 N and one valid fossil species, C. ameghinorum.

Ceratophyllidae

Ceratophyllidae (bird and rodent fleas), family Dampf 1908 of order Siphonaptera; about 51 genera and 435 species, largest monophyletic flea family, global including Antarctica, with plague-vector Nosopsyllus fasciatus.

Ceratophyllum

Ceratophyllum (hornwort, coontail), sole genus of Ceratophyllaceae, rootless submerged freshwater angiosperms with whorled forked leaves; about six species, sister group to eudicots, Early Cretaceous divergence.

Ceratophyllum demersum

Ceratophyllum demersum, coontail or common hornwort, is a cosmopolitan rootless submerged aquatic plant of Ceratophyllaceae, sold as an aquarium oxygenator, used in phytoremediation, and invasive in New Zealand.

Ceratopogonidae

Ceratopogonidae, the biting midges or no-see-ums, is a family of tiny bloodsucking flies with 6,206 extant species in 112 genera; Culicoides vectors bluetongue, African horse sickness, and Oropouche viruses.

Ceratopsia

Ceratopsia, the horned dinosaurs including Triceratops, are herbivorous Marginocephalia dinosaurs from ~158 to 66 Ma across Asia, North America, and Europe, defined by a rostral beak bone, frills, and horns.

Ceratosaurus

Ceratosaurus, a large horned theropod dinosaur of the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation (also Portugal), named by Marsh in 1884; known for its nasal horn, back osteoderms, unusually fast growth, and rarity versus Allosaurus.

Ceratozamia

Ceratozamia is a genus of dioecious cycads (Zamiaceae) native from Mexico to Honduras, with horned sporophylls, about 36–43 species, montane karst habitats, and an Oligocene origin.

Ceratozamia hildae

Ceratozamia hildae, the bamboo cycad (cícada bambú, chamalillo), is an endangered Mexican cycad of the Sierra Gorda, Querétaro and San Luis Potosí, distinguished by bow-tie clusters of papery leaflets; CITES Appendix I, IUCN Endangered.

Ceratozamia mixeorum

Ceratozamia mixeorum (Chemnick, T.J.Greg. & Salas-Mor., 1997) is an endangered cycad endemic to the Sierra Mixe, Oaxaca, Mexico, growing in oak-Liquidambar cloud forest at 1450–1900 m; phylogenies place it with C. matudae.

Cerbera

Cerbera is a genus of six species of toxic evergreen trees and shrubs in Apocynaceae, native from Tanzania and the Indian Ocean to the Pacific; best known are the sea mango (Cerbera manghas) and the suicide tree (Cerbera odollam), whose cerberin-rich seeds cause digoxin-like cardiac poisoning.