Southern Cassowary

Located

Southern cassowaries can be found in Northern

Australia, New Guinea and surrounding islands.

Diet

The diet of the southern cassowary consists mainly of

fruit. The cassowary is valuable to the rainforest because

they spread the seeds of large fruit after eating the fruit.

After the fruit is initially eaten, the seeds pass through

the digestive tract of the cassowary and exit in the dung

of the cassowary. In this respect they have been

described as "gardeners of the rainforest". The

cassowary will also consume vegetation, insects and

fungi.

Habitat

Cassowaries are true rainforest birds. They are suited to

live in the dense foliage of the rainforest and the low,

swampy areas of Northern Australia and New Guinea.

Size and Description

Cassowaries are the second heaviest bird on earth

second only to the ostrich. They can weigh up to 130

pounds. The average height of an adult cassowary is

between 4.5 - 6 feet tall. Both the female and male adult

cassowary have the same appearance. The plumage, or

feathers, of the cassowary are black and cover the bird

from the neck to the rump. Like the ostrich, the feathers

do not assist the cassowary in flight. Rather, they offer

protection from the elements of the rainforest. The neck

and head are a beautiful, bright blue color. On the top of

the head is a casque, a helmet-like structure that may

protect the bird from thorns and branches that could

scrape its face. The feet are equipped with three toes

that have sharp claws. The inner toe has an enlarged

claw that is used as protection against potential

predators.

Reproduction

The breeding season occurs between June and

November. During this time the female can mate with

one or more male cassowaries. After mating, the female

will build a nest out of foliage in a scrape and will lay

between 2 - 5 eggs. The male will then incubate the

eggs and remain with the chicks for many months until

they are capable of defending themselves.

Notes

Although beautiful, the cassowary is potentially

dangerous and should not be approached if seen in the

wild.

The cassowary, like many other rainforest animals, is

threatened by human activity. This includes hunting and

habitat loss due to deforestation.

The southern cassowary is one of Australia's most imposing birds - large, colourful, and flightless. It is found only in the dense tropical rainforests of north-east Queensland. Continuing clearing and fragmentation of rainforest, and increased mortality from cars and dogs have reduced cassowary numbers to perhaps as few as around 2000, threatening the species with extinction.

The southern cassowary Casuarius casuariusbelongs to an ancient group of flightless birds that includes Australia's emu, Africa's ostrich and New Zealand's kiwi and now-extinct moa. As tall as an adult human (up to 170 centimetres), the female southern cassowary is Australia's heaviest bird. The cassowary has draping, shiny black plumage and a colourful naked neck and head - brilliant blue and purple with long, drooping red wattles and an amber eye - topped with a helmet-like structure known as a casque. The colour of the skin changes with mood, brightening when the bird is aroused.

The cassowary has no tail, and its wing stubs carry a small number of long, modified quills, like rounded fingernails, which curve around the body. Each heavy, well-muscled leg has three toes, with the inside toe bearing a large dagger-shaped claw that can be used in defence. When the bird is cornered or protecting chicks, it kicks out with both feet at once, and can injure, or even kill, dogs or humans. More usually, it dashes off when alarmed, head lowered, casque first, through the heavy undergrowth. It reaches 40 kilometres per hour in short sprints and can even swim.

Cassowary

Illustration by Barbara Cameron Smith

Distribution and status

While the southern cassowary Casuarius Casuarius is found in New Guinea and surrounding islands, one subspecies -Casuarius casuarius johnsonii - lives in Australia, mostly in dense, tropical rainforests that provide a supply of fruit all year round.

This southern cassowary subspecies is listed as endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the main Commonwealth legislation for protecting the environment and conserving biodiversity.

At the time of European settlement, the cassowary lived in tropical rainforests from Paluma Range (north of Townsville) to the tip of Cape York. Today, the species is listed as nationally endangered, and it is estimated that there are less than 2200 individuals in populations near Mission Beach and Cooktown and on Cape York.

Ecology

More often heard than seen, the cassowary is most active at dawn and dusk, and rests in a sunny, sheltered spot in the middle of the day. Individuals have large home ranges, of up to seven square kilometres.

The cassowary uses its feet and its hard, helmet-like casque to sift through leaf litter, mostly for a wide variety of fallen fruit, but also for dead animals, snails, fungi and other rich organic matter, and it occasionally plucks fruit from low branches. The bird swallows fruit whole and the seeds can end up in large piles of multicoloured dung - a ready-made fertiliser. The cassowary is critical to the survival of many rainforest plants, spreading the seeds of about 150 species. Rats and small marsupials sometimes feast on seeds in the droppings.

Cassowaries have distinctive mateship rituals. The female has an impressive display when proclaiming her territory. Her feathers bristle and, with her neck arched down, she puffs out her throat to make a thunderous booming sound, the effort shaking her whole body. Females are the bigger, more colourful sex, weighing up to 85 kilograms, compared to the male's 40 kilograms.

Between June and August, the male builds a flat dish of leaves, grass and sticks on the forest floor or among grass at the forest edge, using the same nesting site over many years. Into this nest, the female lays from three to five large, glossy, pale pea-green eggs, each weighing about 600 grams. The male sits on them for about 50 days, rarely eating or drinking. Hours after hatching, the brown and buff striped chicks can walk and feed themselves, but the male protects them for nine months or more. The chicks that survive mature at two to three years and can live as long as 40 years.

Male adult cassowary on nest with chicks

Illustration by Sharyn Wragg

Threats

Only 20-25% of former cassowary habitat remains, and much of it is still under pressure.

Threats to the southern cassowary include:

Â· vehicle traffic - road kills are a major cause of adult cassowary deaths

Â· dogs, which attack and kill chicks and juveniles

Â· feral pigs, which damage cassowary habitat.

Recovery action

To survive, cassowaries need large areas of rainforest. There is a need for protection of existing habitat and greater control of dogs and pigs. As well as creating protected areas such as national parks, some local residents are establishing nurseries of cassowary food plants to restore rainforest on cleared land and create corridors to link remaining patches of vegetation.

Description

The Northern and Dwarf Cassowaries are not well known. All cassowaries are usually shy birds of the deep forest, adept at disappearing long before a human knows they are there. Even the more accessible Southern Cassowary of the far north Queenslandrain forests is not well understood.

Females are bigger and more brightly colored. Adult Southern Cassowaries are 1.5 to 1.8 metres (4.9-5.9 ft) tall, although some females may reach 2 metres (6.6 ft),[5] and weigh 58.5 kilograms (129 lb).[6]

All cassowaries have feathers that consist of a shaft and loose barbules. They do not have retrices (tail feathers) or a preen gland. Cassowaries have small wings with 5-6 large remeges. These are reduced to stiff, keratinous quills, like porcupine quills, with no barbs.[6] A claw is on each second finger.[7] The furcula and coracoid are degenerate, and their palatal bones and sphenoid bones touch each other.[8] These, along with their wedge-shaped body, are thought to be adaptations to ward off vines, thorns and saw-edged leaves, allowing them to run quickly through the rainforest.[9]

A cassowary's three-toed feet have sharp claws. The second toe, the inner one in the medial position, sports a dagger-like claw that is 125 millimetres (5 in) long.[6] This claw is particularly fearsome since cassowaries sometimes kick humans and animals with their enormously powerful legs (see Cassowary Attacks, below). Cassowaries can run up to 50 km/h (31 mph) through the dense forest. They can jump up to 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) and they are good swimmers, crossing wide rivers and swimming in the sea as well.[7]

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