Cahoon, John Cyrus (1863–1891), American ornithologist and field naturalist, fell off a sea cliff, age 28, in Newfoundland.

Cairns, John S. (18??-1895), a young birder in North Carolina, was shot and killed, age ??, by an accidental discharge of his own gun, while on a trip to the Black Mountain area.

Caraza, Filberto Muñoz (19??-2002), assistant research scientist in Cuzco, Peru, for the Missouri Botanical Garden, died, age unknown, in a fall from a cliff when he was attempting to collect an orchid specimen. The species Bomarea filibertii is named in his honor.

Cardoso, Adão J. (1951-1997), herpetologist at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) in São Paulo, died, age 46, in a car accident on a field trip.

Carr, Cedric E. (1892-1936), New Zealand-born specialist in orchids, he collected in the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, and New Guinea, where he came down with blackwater fever and died, age 44. Among the species named for him: Acriopis carrii, Calanthe carrii, Kuhlhasseltia carrii, and Malaxis carrii.

Cassin, John(1813–1869), American ornithologist who described 198 new species, age 55, apparently of accidental arsenic poisoning, from his work preserving specimens.

Chabot, Valerie A. (1962 – 1994), a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service volunteer, was attempting to band a peregrine falcon in Alaska when she fell 75 feet and died, age 31.

Chang, Fonchii (1963-1999), ichthyologist, drowned, age 36, along with her motorista in a boat accident near Lake Rimachi, Peru. She was wearing rubber boots, which filled with water and anchored her to the bottom. He was shocked by an electric eel, knocked unconscious, and drowned.

Charcot, Jean Baptiste Auguste Étienne (1867–1936), French neurologist, malacologist, polar explorer, and oceanographer. Abandoned study of medicine after his physician father died. Drowned, age 69, when his vessel (the Pourqoui Pas?) capsized while on a polar survey off Greenland.

Chasen, Frederick Nutter (1896-1942), British ornithologist, director, Raffles Museum, Singapore. Killed when the HMS “Giang Be,” the ship upon which he was evacuating Singapore, was sunk by Japanese forces in the Bangka Strait.

Cheng, Yu-Pin (1966-2009), a botanist and ecologist at Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, died, age 43, in a car accident on his field trip to collect a rare Fagaceae (or beech family) species in Pingtung County, Taiwan.

Chernov, Ivan Yu (1959-2015), eminent Russian soil biologist and mycologist at Moscow State University, died of a heart attack, age 55, while on fieldwork in Cát Tiên National Park, Vietnam.

Chillcott, James G.T. (1929-1967), a Canadian entomologist specializing in flies, died of a heart attack, age 37, near Kathmandu, Nepal.

Cirillo, Domenico Maria Leone (1739-1799). Italian naturalist, court physician, professor of botany, publicly executed, age 60, during a political revolution in Naples.

Clark, Rebecca (1971-2004), a marine biologist from Canada, died age 32 in the infamous 2004 tsunami in Thailand, while working on a sea turtle conservation project

Clemens, Joseph (1862 – 1936), a British-American missionary, was in the Huon Peninsula, in what is now Papua New Guinea, collecting plant specimens for international herbaria when he died, age 73, probably from food poisoning after eating wild boar meat.

Co, Leonardo (1953-2010), botanist at the University of the Philippines, age 56, shot down with two assistants in what the military claimed was a gun battle with rebel forces, while collecting seedlings of endangered trees for replanting. But a colleague says soldiers ambushed Co’s party soon after giving permission to collect in that area, perhaps because they regarded the university as a hotbed of leftist radicalism. The names of two species of Philippine endemic plants now honor Co: the orchid Mycaranthes leonardi and the parasitic plant Rafflesia leonardi.

Coelho, Elias Pacheco (1950-1987), a marine biologist at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, he later switched to the study of sea birds. He was climbing a sea cliff on the island of Cabo Frio to investigate some bird nests when he fell to his death, age 37. Oddly, his colleagues named the Rio de Janeiro spiny rat in his honor, Trinomys eliasi.

Collins, Joseph (1938-2012), herpetologist at the University of Kansas, founder of the Center for North American Herpetology, co-author of a Peterson Field Guide: Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America, he died, age 72, of a heart attack while on a collecting trip in Florida.

Cook, Capt. James (1728-1779), British naval commander of three expeditions around the world, sometimes a reluctant naturalist (as when he spent a day plying back and forth in heavy weather in the Strait of Le Maire while Banks and Solander botanized onshore), but he made possible some of the pioneering species collections in the great age of discovery. Killed, age 50, in a confrontation on the beach in Hawaii.

Copley, Joanna (1955-1988), a Scottish researcher, was studying baboons in Mkuzi Game Reserve in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, when a rhino charged, struck her with its horn, and broke her neck, age 23.

Cousteau, Philippe (1940–1979), French oceanographer, diver, and filmmaker, second son of Jacques-Yves and Simone Cousteau, author of Shark: Splendid Savage of the Sea, died, age 38, when his PBY Catalina flying boat crashed in the Tagus River near Lisbon.

Jack Cox

Cox, Jack H. (1952-2010), crocodile specialist, died, age 58, from cerebral malaria, in Laos.

Cralitz, Heinrich (?–1637) was a German physician and astronomer, but accompanied a Dutch West Indies Company expedition to Brazil in search of botanical medicines, and died soon after arrival, cause unknown.

Cranch, John (1785-1816), a collector of natural history objects, died, age 31, probably of yellow fever, while serving aboard HMS Congo on its exploration of the Zaire River. He may have been the first naturalist to employ a plankton net.

Craven, Ian(1962–1993), ornithologist, age 31, plane crash in Irian Jaya.

Crispin, William B. (18??-1911?), a birder in New Jersey, fell more than 200 feet to his death, age ??, while trying to collect the eggs of a “duck hawk”–that is, a peregrine falcon–on the Nockaminon Cliffs, above Philadelphia on the Delaware River.

Cunningham, Richard (1793-1835), colonial botanist and superintendent of the Sydney Botanic Garden Australia 1833-35, died age 42, near the Bogan River in NW New South Wales, Australia. He wandered away from Sir Thomas Mitchell’s expedition to explore the Darling River, frightened a group of Aborigines and they killed him. Details at: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cunningham-richard-1943
and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cunningham_(botanist)