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Common merganser
Common merganser (Mergus merganser), also called goosander, Grand Harle, or Serreta grande: a large serrated-billed fish-eating duck of northern lakes and rivers, a cavity nester, IUCN Least Concern with about 1.9 million breeding birds.
Common mudpuppy
Common mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus), also called waterdog: a large, fully aquatic, neotenic salamander of eastern North America that keeps bushy red external gills for life, eats crayfish, and hosts the endangered salamander mussel.
Common myeloid progenitor
The common myeloid progenitor (CMP), also called CFU-GEMM, is a blood progenitor committed to the myeloid lineage; arising from multipotent progenitors, it yields granulocyte-monocyte and megakaryocyte-erythroid progenitors, not lymphoid cells.
Common myna
Common myna (Acridotheres tristis), or Indian myna, an Asian starling and one of only three birds on the IUCN 100 worst invasive species list, introduced worldwide for insect control, now a pest competing with native birds.
Common name
Common name (vernacular name): the everyday, language-specific name of a species, unlike the code-governed scientific name. Ambiguous and unstandardized: one name can cover several organisms, many species have none.
Common names of ferns
Common names of ferns are vernacular names like maidenhair, sword fern, and water fern, applied outside botanical nomenclature, with one name often covering several unrelated genera.
Common nightingale
Common nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos), a brown Muscicapidae songbird famed for the male's 200-plus song types sung by night. IUCN Least Concern globally but red-listed and declining in the UK.
Common octopus
Common octopus (Octopus vulgaris, Cuvier 1797), a Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic benthic cephalopod, head of a species complex of at least six species; major fishery animal, 12–18 month semelparous life cycle, model organism for invertebrate cognition.
Common ostrich
Common ostrich (Struthio camelus), Africa's largest flightless bird and the world's tallest and heaviest, fastest two-legged animal; two-toed feet, 43 mph sprints, two living species since the 2014 Somali ostrich split.
Common periwinkle
Common periwinkle (Littorina littorea), edible or European periwinkle, a North Atlantic intertidal grazing snail native from Spain to the White Sea, introduced to North America around 1840 via rock ballast.
Common pheasant
The common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus), also called the ring-necked pheasant, is a game bird native to temperate Asia and southeastern Europe, widely introduced, including the United States in 1881, and reared in large numbers for shooting.
Common potoo
Common potoo (Nyctibius griseus), also kakuy or urutau, a nocturnal Neotropical bird of family Nyctibiidae ranging from Nicaragua to Argentina; Least Concern, sister to northern potoo, cryptic branch-like posture.
Common quail
Common quail (Coturnix coturnix), also European quail: small migratory Phasianidae gamebird breeding from western Europe to central Asia, wintering in Africa; secretive, identified by the male's 'wet-my-lips' call; IUCN Least Concern.
Common raccoon dog
Common raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides, finnraccoon): a small East Asian canid resembling a raccoon but a true member of Canidae, near foxes. Invasive in Europe, vector of rabies, farmed for fur, ~50–65 cm and 7.5 kg.
Common raven
Common raven (Corvus corax), also northern raven, the world's largest songbird, an all-black corvid of the Northern Hemisphere with a wedge-shaped tail, deep croaking call, ape-level planning cognition, and increasing populations that create wildlife-management conflicts.
Common slow worm
Common slow worm (Anguis fragilis), a legless lizard of western and central Europe, often mistaken for a snake. Semi-fossorial, ovoviviparous, slug-eating, up to 54 years in captivity; now a five-species complex.
Common snapping turtle
Common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina, also North American snapping turtle), a large freshwater turtle from Canada to Central America; omnivorous, 8-12 inch carapace, temperature-dependent sex determination, powerful defensive bite on land.
Common snook
Common snook (Centropomus undecimalis), also called linesider or robalo, is a Centropomidae game fish ranging from the US mid-Atlantic to Brazil, abundant in Florida estuaries, managed as a recreational-only gamefish with a 40% SPR goal.
Common starfish
Common starfish (Asterias rubens), a five-armed northeast Atlantic sea star from Arctic Norway to Senegal, intertidal to 650 m, a mussel-eating predator and aquaculture pest that everts its stomach to digest bivalves.
Common starling
Common starling (Sturnus vulgaris, European starling), a Sturnidae songbird native to Europe and western Asia, introduced to North America via Central Park releases (1877, 1890, 1891), now about 93 million birds; known for murmurations, mimicry of up to 20 species, and native-range declines.
Common sunflower
Common sunflower (Helianthus annuus, mirasol), a North American annual aster domesticated in eastern North America ~4,000-5,000 years ago; major oilseed crop with heliotropic young heads, 40-50% oil in modern hybrids.
Common Surinam toad
Common Surinam toad (Pipa pipa), also Surinam toad or star-fingered toad, an aquatic Amazonian frog whose female embeds about 100 eggs in back skin; young emerge as froglets after 3 to 4 months; IUCN Least Concern.
Common swift
Common swift (Apus apus), a migratory Apodidae bird breeding in Europe and Asia and wintering in sub-Saharan Africa; eats, sleeps, and mates on the wing; Near Threatened in Europe since 2021 with a UK decline of 70% (1995-2024).
Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events
The Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) is a vocabulary and five-point severity scale from the US National Cancer Institute for grading adverse events in cancer trials.
Common toad
The common toad (Bufo bufo, Linnaeus 1758) is a large warty European toad, up to 10 cm, breeding in spring ponds; Least Concern but declining, with road mortality a key threat and Bufo spinosus now split.
Common tsessebe
Common tsessebe (Damaliscus lunatus, Basterhartbees), a southern African savanna antelope related to the topi; grazes short grass, runs 60 km/h, IUCN Least Concern globally but Vulnerable in South Africa.
Common vampire bat
The common vampire bat, Desmodus rotundus, is a small American bat that feeds exclusively on blood and is known for sharing food with roost-mates and transmitting rabies.
Common variable immunodeficiency
Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID), or common variable immune deficiency, is a primary immunodeficiency with hypogammaglobulinemia from B-cell dysfunction, causing recurrent infections, autoimmunity, and lymphoma risk, treated with immunoglobulin replacement.
Common variable immunodeficiency phenotype due to CD19/CD81 deficiency
CVID phenotype due to CD19/CD81 deficiency (ORPHA:696881), also called CD19 deficiency or CVID type 6: autosomal recessive childhood-onset antibody deficiency from biallelic CD19 or CD81 mutations disrupting the B cell co-receptor complex.
Common warthog
Common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus, warthog): an open-country African wild pig of family Suidae, one of two warthog species, grazing savannas, using aardvark burrows, IUCN Least Concern.