Cassowary

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Casuariiformes
Family:	Casuariidae
Genus:	Casuarius

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary

 

Source: https://www.ourbreathingplanet.com/cassowary/

Cassowary's description

Source : http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/cassowary

Cassowary is fauna that native from eastern Indonesia and Australia. Its body is very big, but flightless. It has hard, stiff, and black fur. There are 3 species of cassowary, those are Northern cassowary or single-wattled cassowary (Casuarius unappendiculatus), Southern cassowary or double-wattled cassowary (Casuarius casuarius), and Dwarf cassowary or Bennet's cassowary (Casuarius benneti). 

Northern cassowary or single-wattled cassowary is found in Papua and Papua New Guinea. Its casque is larger and more flared than Southern cassowary. It is probably the most threatened of the three species. Its throat skin and wattle are either red or golden.

Dwarf cassowary or Bennet's cassowary is found in Papua and Papua New Guinea. It is the most smallest and colorful cassowary of all. It has low casque and no wattle. The neck is deep blue and it has a round, purple spot where the wattles would be and  bright pink spots on its cheeks. Its height can be until 100 cm or more. Adult's dwarf cassowary can be until 110 cm. Its weight is up to 17.5 kg.

Southern cassowary or double-wattled cassowary is found in Seram (Maluku, Indonesia) and northeast Australia. It is the most tallest cassowary of all. It has high casque and double wattle. Its casque is bladelike and brownish. Its height is between 120-170 cm. Female weight is up to 58 kg and male weight is up to 34 kg.

Source : https://a-z-animals.com/animals/cassowary/

http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/cassowary

Cassowary's unique's parts of body

Source : https://i.pinimg.com/236x/cd/77/dc/cd77dcd0a0b19b1655e8d029962cfa9f--denver-zoo-colourful-birds.jpg

The cassowary has a horny helmet called a casque on top of its head. The colour is brownish. This helps it crash its way through the thick forest.  The casque starts to develop on top of their had at one to two years of age. It's made of a sponge-like material and covered with a thick layer of keratin, the same thing our fingernails are made of. It could reveal a bird's age or dominance, or be used as a sort of helmet that protects the bird's head as it pushes though the rain forest underbrush. It helps the bird make sounds too. 

 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTZLEjTHnc1SernPZljk53S8_BSjvj5czwvjbih9z_0poFe5RFUjyoVcbUJWeCsQ8BP_d453AwPInB31YcdAEinQxuW9fzwXNpS0Et4c7Wd7N0VzCI32lljPXpnUAbApQHxoedG0KeO02J/s1600/Cassowary+Hero+starts+drumming+again+6.jpg  

 

The feathers on the body are black and look more like hair than feathers. It's not designed to flight but for protection in the cassowarry's habitat, keeping the bird dry and safe from the sharp thorns found on many rain forest plants. Cassowaries are generally jet black as adults, but the fabulous skin colours on their face and neck vary according to species and location.

Source : http://www.kurandaconservation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/neck2a.jpg

Two of the three cassowary species have wattles, or bare, fleshy pouches of skin that hang from the neck: southern or double-wattled cassowaries and northern or single-wattled cassowaries. The wattles are brightly colored blue, red, gold, purple, or white, depending on the species or subspecies. Their purpose? Perhaps to help indicate the bird’s mood or relay other social cues known only to the cassowaries.

 

Source : https://www.animalstown.com/animals/c/cassowary/cassowary.php

http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/cassowary

The Unique of Cassowary

Source : https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgckTRSpCjQblzBhgl7k7R-mBtn_IhsuKVAwqwp6ZZPJ6TtM5cTIlNrUCCs-XrL-r1sUtgoBqVj-LC85lSqkjzJTvDda8GNQz1V9YBkLfkGHCRi6GRczv8FlL6MputzZlO_6PRrEFNce04/s1600/kasuari-header3.jpg

Cassowaries have a reputation for being scary, and that reputation is somewhat well deserved. But they’re also fascinating. 

First, they could kill us. Cassowaries, writes Jacob Brogan for Smithsonian.com, resemble “an ostrich as described by H.P. Lovecraft, or maybe a turkey fused with a velociraptor.” They look deadly and they often are. Cassowaries have one five-inch claw on a toe of each foot, which they can use to kick out at fast speeds. The cassowary’s nickname of “murderbird” is well deserved: together with emus, they are among the few species of bird definitively known to have killed at least one human, writes Darren Naish for Scientific American.

Second, they can jump five feet on the ground. “Attacking cassowaries charge and kick, sometimes jumping on top of the victim,” Naish writes. But cassowaries don’t just do little hops: according to Mark Manicini writing for Mental Floss, they can jump up to five feet in the air. They can make the jumps as part of their attack. “They’re great sprinters to boot, with a top running speeds of 30 miles per hour,” Mancini writes.

Third, they have giant fingernails on their heads. As if that wasn’t all intimidating enough, a cassowary has the protection of its “casque,” a hard helmet on the top of its head made of a spongy material covered in keratin. “No one knows for certain why cassowaries have a casque,” writes the San Diego Zoo. “It could reveal a bird’s age or dominance, or be used as a sort of helmet or shock absorber that protects the bird’s head as it pushes through the rain forest underbrush.” It’s also possible the casque helps the cassowary make some of its calls, the zoo writes.

Fourth, “Left to themselves and treated with respect, cassowaries are shy, peaceable, and harmless,” writes Olivia Judson for Natonal Geographic. “In Australia the last recorded instance of a cassowary killing a person was in 1926—and that was in self-defense.” Cassowaries are best left to themselves. Like many other wild creatures who are ill-suited to keep company with humans, they just want to live out their lives eating plants and small animals, occasionally getting into kick fights with inanimate objects (according to Brogan) and mating with their weird, weird genitalia.

Fifth. Australia is trying to protect them, because they're really endangered. In fact,although cassowary have gone more than 90 years without killing a human (though they have injured more than 100 people, according to Naish), human activity in the past century have driven the birds almost to extinction in Queensland. Dogs can kill cassowaries, as can feral pigs–but like many other wild animals, cars and habitat loss are both big factors in the decline of Casuarius casuarius johnsonii, the unique subspecies of the southern cassowary found in Queensland’s Wet Tropics region. This forest, the oldest rainforest in the world, is itself endangered, writes Lulu Morris for National Geographic. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site. Like its biggest, scariest, flappiest resident, it needs protecting.

Source : https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/five-facts-cassowary-180964963/

Cassowary's diet

Source : https://i.imgur.com/ZYeqh17.jpg

   

Cassowaries are frugivurous that feed on the fruits of several hundred rain forest plants. Because their digestive tract is relatively short, their droppings contain fruit seeds that are only partially digested. Sometimes, these seeds are so large that no other animal can swallow them.

Source : http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/cassowary

Cassowary's habit

Source : https://i1.wp.com/www.jalaksuren.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Perilaku-Kasuari-Kerdil.png?resize=730%2C615&ssl=1

Cassowaries are native to humid rainforest of New Guinea and nearby smaller islands, and northeastern Australia. They will, however, venture out into palm scrub, grassland, savanna, and swamp forest. It is unclear if some islands' populations are natural or the result of trade in young birds by natives. Where trees are dropping fruit, cassowaries will come in and feed, with each bird defending a tree from others for a few days. They move on when the fruit is depleted. Fruit is swallowed whole, even items as large as bananas and apples.Cassowaries are keystone species of rain forests because they eat fallen fruit whole and distribute seeds across the jungle floor via excrement. 

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary

Cassowary's breeding

Source: https://78.media.tumblr.com/7b720531efbfc0c89d94a1f7036fbb98/tumblr_oi91a97eKb1shg2gro1_500.jpg

Breeding season coincides with the time of year when fruit is most abundant in the bird's rain forest home: June to October. The solitary female becomes more tolerant of adult males as breeding season approaches. The male struts in a circle around the female and calls to her in a series of low booms. 

The pair stays together for a few weeks until the female is ready to lay eggs, and they find a nesting site made of a simple scrape in the ground and a few leaves. Once the female lays her three to five eggs, which are green, she moves on, leaving the male to incubate the eggs and look after the hatchlings. Like the female emu, she may find and breed with another male and lay another clutch of eggs.

Source : http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/cassowary

The different between female and male cassowary

  Source : https://supercassowary.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/mr-cassowary.gif

There are many differents between male cassowary and female cassowary. Female cassowaries are larger than male cassowaries and even more brightly coloured. Females tend to have a large casque than males.

Source : http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/cassowary




Question and Answer
1. What is the scientific name of single-wattled cassowary?
a. Casuarius casuarius
b. Casuarius unappendiculatus
c. Casuarius benneti
d. Casuarius casuariidae
Answer : B.

2. What is the colour of cassowary's feather's body?
a. Black
b. Purple
c. Red
d. Orange
Answer : A.

3. What part makes northern cassowary and southern casowary are different?
a. Their feathers and their legs
b. Their amount of wattled and their feathers
c. Their casque and their amount of wattled
d. Their legs and their casque
Answer : C.

4. What is actually cassowary's character?
a. Peaceable and scary
b. Harmless and peaceable
c. Shy and peaceable
d. Fascinating and scary 
Answer : D.

5. "Like the female emu, she may find and breed with another male and lay another clutch of eggs". This sentence means that the system of cassowary's marriage is ....
a. monogamy
b. polygamy
c. polyandry
d. polygyny
Answer : C.