some fun things about the humble cassowary:
• cassowaries are ratites! this is a distinct group with smooth/flat sternum/breastbone and no keel (think ostriches, kiwi, emu) from other birds
• there's actually 3 species!
Casuarius bennetti, the dwarf cassowary/Bennett's cassowary, has no wattle, found in New Guinea/New Britain/Yapen highland
Casuarius unappendiculatus, the northern cassowary/single-wattled cassowary, found in nothern/western New Guinea + Yapen
Casuarius casuarius, the southern cassowary/double-wattled cassowary, found in southern New Guinea, northeastern Australia and the Aru Islands (this is probably the one you're familiar with!)
• they're a keystone species that help maintain the continued biodiversity of rainforest plants in Queensland, Australia and nearby islands
• they're threatened by human habitation, vehicles, dogs, feral pigs, habitat fragmentation, habitat degradation, hunting and natural disasters (estimates for how many are left aren't great - they tend to range from around 1500 to up to 10,000)
• immature birds (less than 12 months) seem to be particularly vulnerable to internal parasites, aspergillosis and avian tuberculosis in disturbed/compromised habitat
• they're inversely sexually dimorphic - while they tend to be visually mostly monomorphic, females are larger (especially in leg/foot proportion) and more aggressive
• females are polyandrous - they can have up to 4 different males mates in a season, and lay roughly 16 eggs. the males only breed with one female though
• after laying, the male typically drives the female off, and spends the rest of the season brooding, protecting and hatching eggs while the female finds other mates. the males also raise the chicks up until 14-16 months of age! they protect them and teach them how to forage and hunt
• there's lots of hypotheses, but we still don't conclusively know why they have that casque on their head (could be for courtship but both sexes have them, could be for fighting, could be for communication, could be for clearing through dense brush, etc)
(image courtesy of peppermint narwhal)
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