Cassowary

The cassowary is a type of ratite, which is a long-legged, usually large, flightless bird that’s a member of the Palaeognathae infraclass.

Its wings are nearly vestigial and only have a few quills. The feathers of the cassowary are coarse, and some have filaments that resemble hairs. Because of this, the cassowary was hunted and is raised for its feathers. Females are bigger than males, and the bright colors of their heads and necks are more vivid. Even more striking is the knifelike claw on the inner toe of each foot. The claws of this mostly fruit-eating bird are at least as formidable as the talons of the most powerful bird of prey.

4 Amazing Cassowary Facts!

• The male bird raises the chicks, and he is especially dangerous in parent mode. He won’t hesitate to use his claws on predators and other threats.
• The female mates with two or three males in a season. She lays her eggs in their nest after mating, then moves on.
• Biologists once believed cassowaries used the hard casques on top of their heads to push through the undergrowth in the rain forest, but now they’re not so sure what the casque is for.
• The bird has a good repertoire of vocalizations, including booms, hisses, rumbles, and roars.

Where To Find Cassowary

These birds are found in New Guinea, the northeastern part of Australia, and the Aru Islands which lie between New Guinea and Australia. Though they are large birds, they are secretive and hard to find in the tropical rainforests. They are known to live in the Paluma Range National Park, the McIlwraith Range National Park, and the Jardine River National Park in Australia. Fortunately, there are a number of zoos that exhibit cassowaries. Among them are:

• The San Diego Zoo
• The Edinburgh Zoo
• The Denver Zoo
• The Perth Zoo
• The National Zoo
• The Natural Bridge Zoo
• The Los Angeles Zoo

Cassowary Nests

The bird’s nest is constructed by the male upon fallen leaves on the ground. It is shallow but sometimes lined with leaves or grass. After the female lays her eggs in the nest, the male chases her away.

Cassowary Scientific name

There are three species. Their classifications are:

• The southern or double-wattled cassowary, Casuarius casuarius. Casuarius is from the Malay word kasuari, which is a word for the bird. The classification Casuarius casuiarius makes the southern cassowary the type species for the bird. All the other species of cassowary are compared with it.
• The northern or single-wattled cassowary, Casuarius unappendiculatus. The epithet of this classification refers to the fact that it has only one wattle as compared to the southern cassowary’s two.
• The dwarf or Bennett’s cassowary, Casuarius bennetti. The epithet for this bird honors the scientist George Bennett, who examined the bird and realized it was a new species of cassowary.

There was a fourth species, the pygmy cassowary, Casuarius lydekkeri, but it is extinct. There are no subspecies of the extant birds.

Cassowary Size, Physical Features & Behavior

The southern cassowary is the largest of these birds and the third largest bird in the world after its cousin the emu and the ostrich. Its physical features are a body that is between 40 to 72 inches in length, 75 inches in height, and can weigh 187 pounds. Its head is topped with a horny casque that grows to between 5 and 7 inches tall and grows with the bird. It is possible to estimate the age of a grown bird by the size of its casque.

The bird has a bright blue head and a red neck that bears two red wattles. Each long, scaly leg ends in a three-toed foot whose inner toe bears that lethal claw, which can be 4.7 inches long. These birds live in New Guinea, which includes Papua New Guinea and Indonesia and the Aru Islands and Seram, an island that is part of Indonesia. Its population is over 2500 birds and is declining.

The southern cassowary is shy and solitary and will chase other cassowaries away except during the mating season. It eats fruit that has fallen to the ground and is capable of eating fruit that will poison other animals. The bird will also eat mushrooms and other fungi and small vertebrates like lizards. Despite that famous claw, it is not used to grab prey the way raptors use their talons.

Though it is true that these birds will attack humans, they seem to only do so when they’re provoked, frightened, defending eggs or chicks, or under attack themselves. Some cassowaries associate humans with food and will simply jump at a human in expectation of a meal.

The northern cassowary is known for its orange-gold or red neck and single wattle. It is built along the same lines as the southern cassowary, but is a bit smaller in height and lighter in weight with the females weighing about 128 pounds. It is only found in northern New Guinea’s coastal swamplands and lowland rainforests. Populations are also found on the islands of Waigeo, Batanta, Yapen, and Salawati. There are an estimated 2500 to 10,000 of these birds, but like the southern cassowary, their population is declining.

Like the southern cassowary, the northern cassowary eats fruit and small animals that it can handle. It will also eat carrion, and babies eat the feces of their father and siblings. Indeed, grown birds are known to eat their own feces if they still have undigested fruit.

As its name suggests, the dwarf cassowary is the smallest species, but it is not small. Physical features include a body that’s 3 to 5 feet long and 39 to 53 inches in height. It weighs between 39 and 57 pounds. Its triangular casque is smaller than those of the northern and southern cassowaries in proportion to its body. It has a bright blue and red neck and pink cheeks. This cassowary is found in New Guinea, Yapen Island, and New Britain in higher elevations than the northern or southern cassowaries. The population of the bird is unknown, but like the northern and southern cassowaries, its conservation status is least concern.

Cassowary Diet

These birds eat fruits, berries, fungi, and other plant materials. They can eat otherwise toxic plants because food goes through their digestive system very quickly. They’ll also eat small reptiles and amphibians, rats and mice, snails and insects.

Cassowary Predators and Threats

The biggest threat to these birds is the human. Humans kill them for their meat and their feathers and inadvertently kill them on the highways. Their chicks, which drop at a sign of danger, are eaten by dogs and pigs. Pigs also eat their eggs, and the cassowary’s habitat has been fragmented and destroyed by logging and development. Other things that threaten cassowaries are diseases and natural disasters such as typhoons.

Cassowary Reproduction, Babies, and Lifespan

The breeding season for cassowaries occurs in winter and spring. Males will claim a territory, build a nest, and court a female by vocalizing and inflating his throat and dancing while she watches. If she accepts him and doesn’t drive him off, she’ll sit on the ground, and they’ll mate. She will then lay four to six green eggs in his nest. When she’s done, he’ll chase her off and incubate the eggs himself for about 47 to 56 days. In the meantime, the female will find another male. She’ll lay as many as 20 eggs before she’s through.

Baby cassowaries stay with their fathers for nine months or until their first molt, though they will be three years old before they have grown-up plumage. Some chicks stay with their fathers for as long as 18 months. The baby cassowaries are covered with brown down with black streaks. The father becomes very aggressive if he feels the chicks are under threat from predators.

Female cassowaries are sexually mature when they are two, and the males are mature when they are three. After that, they are able to reproduce for decades. Females can breed until they’re about 40, and males until they’re about 35. The oldest cassowary known lived to be at least 61 years old.

Cassowary Population

Scientists aren’t completely sure how many cassowaries are in the wild, but the status of all species is of least concern. There are 2500 southern cassowaries and up to 10,000 northern cassowaries, and the populations of all three species is declining.