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Cocker Spaniel
Cocker Spaniel: a small British flushing gundog named for woodcock work, split into the English Cocker Spaniel and American Cocker Spaniel (AKC split 1946–47); founded on the sire Obo (1879), smallest AKC Sporting breed, 10–14 year lifespan.
Cockle (bivalve)
Cockle (bivalve): marine bivalves of the family Cardiidae, including the common cockle Cerastoderma edule and giant clams; Indo-Pacific origin in the Late Triassic, filter-feeding burrowers supporting European fisheries worth millions of euros annually.
Cockroach
Cockroach: non-termite insect of order Blattodea (also roach), flattened nocturnal scavenger, ~4,500 species, termites nested within; pests include German, Oriental, American cockroaches.
Cocky Bennett
Cocky Bennett, sulphur-crested cockatoo of Sydney, died 1916 reportedly aged 119 after 78 years at sea with Captain Ellis and decades as Sea Breeze Hotel bar celebrity; taxidermied at Carss Cottage Museum.
Cocoa butter
Cocoa butter, the fat of Theobroma cacao beans, is the continuous phase of chocolate, ~30% of the product, with POS/SOS/POP TAGs, six polymorphs, Form V tempering, and CBE/CBR/CBS alternatives.
Cocoa butter substitute
Cocoa butter substitute (CBS), also called cocoa butter alternative, is a lauric vegetable fat from palm kernel or coconut oil used to fully replace cocoa butter in compound coatings; unlike CBEs it is incompatible with cocoa butter and needs no tempering.
Cocoa in Ghana
Cocoa in Ghana is the country's leading agricultural export and a state-managed industry: with Côte d'Ivoire it supplies roughly 70 percent of world cocoa, priced by government.
Cocoa solids
Cocoa solids are the non-fat, defatted material of the cocoa bean, separated from cocoa butter by Van Houten's 1828 hydraulic press and sold as cocoa powder; distinct from total cacao percentage and from alkalized (Dutched) powder.
Cocobolo
Cocobolo, the heartwood of Dalbergia retusa, a Central American rosewood tree from Mexico to Colombia; dense, oily, figured timber for instruments and luxury furniture; CITES Appendix II and IUCN Critically Endangered.
Cocoliztli epidemics
Cocoliztli epidemics (Nahuatl for pest): two 16th-century outbreaks in Mexico, 1545-1548 and 1576-1578, killed up to 80% and then 50% of the native population; cause debated between Salmonella Paratyphi C and an indigenous rodent-borne hemorrhagic fever.
Coconut
Coconut (Cocos nucifera), the coconut palm's fruit, a tropical drupe with fibrous husk, three-eyed shell, and liquid-filled seed cavity; independently domesticated in Indian and Pacific Ocean basins, grown for copra oil, coir, and food.
Coconut crab
Coconut crab (Birgus latro, robber crab), the world's largest land arthropod, a terrestrial hermit crab of Indo-Pacific islands reaching 4 kg and 1 m leg span; IUCN Vulnerable, threatened by overharvesting and habitat loss.
Coconut milk
Coconut milk, the aqueous oil-in-water emulsion extracted from grated mature coconut kernel (Cocos nucifera), a Southeast Asian staple and dairy alternative; Codex grades by fat content (milk ≥10%, cream ≥20%), preserved by canning, UHT, spray-drying, or freezing.
Coconut oil
Coconut oil, an edible oil from the kernel of Cocos nucifera, is about 90-94% saturated fat rich in lauric acid; produced from copra or as virgin oil, used in cooking, cosmetics, and soap, and shown to raise LDL cholesterol versus other vegetable oils.
Coconut sugar
Coconut sugar, or coconut palm sugar, is a brown granulated sweetener made by evaporating coconut palm flower sap. Substitutes 1:1 for cane sugar; GI of 35 is unreplicated; major production in Banyumas, Indonesia.
Coconut water
Coconut water is the liquid endosperm of the coconut (Cocos nucifera), high in potassium (~50–55 mmol/L) and low in sodium. Trials show rehydration roughly equal to water or sports drinks; sodium-enriched versions restore plasma volume better.
Cocos booby
Cocos booby (Sula brewsteri), formerly Brewster's booby, an eastern Pacific sulid seabird split from the brown booby by the AOS in 2024; about 65,000 breeding pairs, expanding westward across the Pacific.
Coculture
Coculture is a cell culture technique in which two or more distinct cell types are grown together in one vessel so their interactions and signaling can be studied directly.
Cod
Cod, chiefly Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), a large North Atlantic groundfish; historic staple of New England, Newfoundland, and Norwegian fisheries, collapsed in the early 1990s and now managed under rebuilding plans.
Cod liver oil
Cod liver oil, oil from the liver of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), a supplement providing omega-3s (EPA, DHA) plus vitamins A and D; historically used for rickets and tuberculosis, avoided in pregnancy due to vitamin A.
Cod tongue
Cod tongue is a dish of flesh from a cod's throat and lower jaw, a traditional Newfoundland food, flour-coated and fried, and also eaten in Norway and Portugal.
CODAS syndrome
CODAS syndrome (cerebrooculodentoauriculoskeletal syndrome, OMIM 600373) is a rare autosomal recessive multisystem developmental disorder caused by biallelic LONP1 variants, first described by Shebib et al. in 1991, with cataracts, crumpled ears, and skeletal dysplasia.
Codeine
Codeine (3-methylmorphine) is an opioid painkiller and cough suppressant isolated from opium by Robiquet in 1832, activated mainly by CYP2D6 conversion to morphine, restricted in children, and scheduled III/V in the US.
Codiaeum variegatum
Codiaeum variegatum, the garden croton (garden croton, fire croton, Joseph's Coat), is an Euphorbiaceae shrub native from Malesia to the SW Pacific, grown for variegated foliage in over 300 cultivars; mildly toxic sap, IUCN least concern.
Codon optimization
Codon optimization is a genetic engineering method that recodes synonymous codons in a gene, leaving the protein unchanged while improving expression in a host organism.
Codon usage analysis
Codon usage analysis is a bioinformatics method that quantifies how unevenly synonymous codons are used in genes, producing indices such as RSCU, ENC, and CAI.
Codonopsis
Codonopsis (党参, Dangshen) is a Campanulaceae genus of about 49 Asian perennial herbs whose dried roots are a qi-tonifying traditional Chinese medicine and food, rich in polyacetylenes, alkaloids, and polysaccharides.
Coefficient of relationship
Coefficient of relationship (r): probability a random allele from each of two individuals is identical by descent; r = 2 × kinship, 0.5 for siblings and parent-offspring. Introduced by Sewall Wright in 1922; now estimated from genomic data.
Coelacanth
Coelacanth (Latimeria): lobe-finned "living fossil" fish thought extinct ~65-70 million years until the 1938 Chalumna River catch; two species, L. chalumnae and L. menadoensis; lungfish, not coelacanth, is the tetrapods' closest living relative.
Coelenterata
Coelenterata, a historical taxon meaning "hollow intestine", once united the phyla Cnidaria (jellyfish, corals, anemones) and Ctenophora (comb jellies); now obsolete and split into two separate phyla after molecular phylogenetics.