11/8/2018 10 Facts About Cassowaries | Mental Floss

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10 Facts About Cassowaries

BY MARK MANCINI
MAY 26, 2016

All birds are living dinosaurs but the

dagger clawed cassowary especially
looks the part Here’s everything you
need to know about the majestic—and
terrifying—avians

1. THE SOUTHERN CASSOWARY IS

EARTH’S SECOND-HEAVIEST BIRD.

Scientists currently recognize

three living species of cassowary—all of
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three living species of cassowary all of
which are restricted to New Guinea
northeastern Australia and nearby
islands Among them the aptly named
dwarf cassowary is the smallest with an
average height of around feet Then
there’s the northern cassowary an
orange throated behemoth that can
stand nearly feet tall But the
southern cassowary is bigger than both
From toe to head crest this avian can
stand foot inches tall The only two
birds that grow taller are ostriches and
emus Southern cassowaries do exceed
the latter in weight though adults
often tip the scales at pounds
Behind ostriches this makes them the
second heaviest birds on the planet

2. THESE BIRDS HAVE DANGEROUS

FEET.

In certain parts of their Australian

range you might come across warning
signs that read “Be Cass o wary ” Heed
this advice Normally cassowaries are
shy reclusive animals But when
threatened or cornered they can
become aggressive striking back with
powerful head butts and pecks The
most dangerous weapon in their arsenal
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is a razor sharp claw on the inner toe of

each foot which in southern
cassowaries grows to be inches long
The birds deliver a series of
downward kicks with their hind legs
that have been known to break bones
and cause serious lacerations With a
well placed strike the claws can rip
open a human belly—or throat

3. REARING CHICKS IS THE FATHER’S

JOB.

Come mating season a female will

breed with several partners After laying
her eggs she abandons them at which
point the males take over For the next
days or so each cassowary dad
steadfastly incubates his clutch During
this period an expectant father
never leaves the nest not even to eat or
drink he even enters a strange state
where he doesn’t even need to go to the
bathroom until the eggs hatch Once
they do dad spends the next nine
months raising and defending his
chicks The male also teaches his
growing birds how to forage so that
when he eventually chases them away
the youngsters can fend for themselves

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4. CASSOWARIES ARE SURPRISINGLY

GOOD JUMPERS.

What’s scarier than a pound

modern dinosaur with killer claws? One
that can leap feet o the ground To
get the most out of those toe daggers
cassowaries will sometimes jump feet
rst at an attacker with the claws
slashing downward in midair They’re
great sprinters to boot with a top
running speed of miles per hour

5. A SPIKE IS HIDDEN ON EACH

WING

Cassowaries are closely akin to

ostriches emus and kiwis Like their
better known cousins the casqued birds
have useless vestigial wings On the tip
of each is a small claw that probably
serves no purpose

6. THEY MOSTLY EAT FRUIT.

Wild cassowaries mainly dine on

assorted fruits and berries that fall to
the ground in the forests they call
home Every day the typical southern
specimen gobbles up roughly pounds’
worth The big birds also eat plenty of
fungi—along with the occasional dead
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animal for some extra protein

Cassowaries are prone to hunt down

live critters like rodents snails and
lizards every so often Poop is yet
another item on the menu Cassowary
dung usually contains half digested
fruit which still has plenty of
nutritional value so these guys are
known to devour each other’s droppings
—as well as their own Waste not want
not!

7. THE FUNCTION OF THEIR ODD

CRESTS—OR “CASQUES”—IS A
MYSTERY

With royal blue necks and shaggy jet

black feathers cassowaries look like no
other birds on planet earth Their most
distinctive feature is the helmet like
casque that sits above the eyes A bony
protrusion covered with a sheath of
keratin the material which makes up
your ngernails this ornament begins
to develop when the bird is around
years old Scientists have long
speculated—sometimes wildly—about
its purpose One theory is that casques
help the animals push aside forest
underbrush The structures might also
b d
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be used as a way to attract the opposite
sex

Calls of the Cassowary

A more interesting hypothesis involves

how these birds communicate
Cassowaries emit very deep bellows—
the lowest bird calls known to man
Perhaps their casques amplify and
broadcast these sounds by acting as a
resonation chamber It’s believed that
certain crested dinosaurs like
Parasaurolophus of Jurassic Park fame
produced various calls in the exact same
way

8. THEY’VE BEEN KNOWN TO LIVE

FOR DECADES (AT LEAST IN ZOOS).

Naturalists don’t know how old a wild

cassowary can expect to get That said
a few southern cassowaries have
reached their th birthdays in
captivity Under human care northern
cassowaries can top that gure—one
bird reached the age of and another
specimen may have been as old as
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when it died Meanwhile the average

lifespan for captive dwarf cassowaries is
just years

9. CASSOWARIES HAVE STRANGE

GENITALIA.

Both sexes sport a phallic looking “

pseudo penis” appendage However it
isn’t connected to any of their
reproductive organs internally During
copulation the male ejaculates through
his cloaca—an ori ce that lies at the
base of the pseudo penis and not the tip
Males also have what’s usually
described as a “vagina like cavity ”
When they aren’t mating the pseudo
penis is turned inside out and retracted
into this ori ce

Such peculiar anatomy has given the

cassowary a unique place in New
Guinean culture and folklore For
example the native Mianmin people tell
stories about a human woman with a
penis who somehow transformed into a
cassowary Another indigenous group
the Umeda put on a regular ceremony
called “ida ” A big event that lasts for
two days and nights the ritual involves
a fertility dance which calls for two
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male dancers who represent a pair of

cassowaries Each player is given a
heavy mask and is coated with charcoal
from head to toe

10. AT LEAST ONE UNFORTUNATE

HUMAN HAS BEEN KILLED BY A
CASSOWARY.

In April year old Phillip

McLean and his younger brother
Granville set two family dogs on a wild
cassowary near their farm in north
Queensland Things quickly got out of
hand The bird fought back driving
away Granville and one of the canines
with a couple of kicks This didn’t deter
Philip or the other dog as both
remained in the fray Suddenly the
cassowary charged Philip who fell
backwards while trying to ee Pushing
its advantage it pounced onto the boy
and gouged away at his throat A short
while later the elder McLean died of
blood loss To date this is the only
veri ed report of a cassowary taking
human life

In Christopher P Kofron—then a
ranger with the Queensland Parks and
Wildlife service—analyzed
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documented cassowary on human

attacks Twenty two percent of these
cases came down to the bird defending
itself its eggs or its chicks Another
percent were triggered by somebody
who’d gotten too close to a cassowary’s
food

The remaining percent of the

incidents involved a cassowary that
associated people with free meals For
decades well meaning Queenslanders
have been handing out bananas
watermelons and other treats to these
dangerous animals This has led many
cassowaries to lose their natural
shyness around humans in populated
areas Today feeding a wild one is
against the law but the practice still
continues—so if you live in cassowary
country make like you re at the zoo and
don t feed the birds

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