Cassowary

Cassowary Temporal range: 5–0 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓ Early Pliocene – Recent
Montage of three species; left to right: southern cassowary, northern cassowary and dwarf cassowary
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Infraclass:	Palaeognathae
Order:	Casuariiformes
Family:	Casuariidae Kaup, 1847[1]
Genus:	Casuarius Brisson, 1760
Type species
Struthio casuarius[2] Linnaeus, 1758
Species
Casuarius casuarius Southern cassowary Casuarius unappendiculatus Northern cassowary Casuarius bennetti Dwarf cassowary † Casuarius lydekkeri Pygmy cassowary
Synonyms
Casoarius Bonhote Cela Oken, 1816 Cela Moehr, 1752 nomen rejectum Rhea Lacépède, 1800 non Latham 1790 Chelarga Billberg, 1828 Oxyporus Brookes, 1828 Thrasys Billberg, 1828 Cassowara Perry, 1811 Hippalectryo Gloger, 1842[3]

Cassowaries (Tok Pisin: muruk, Indonesian: kasuari, Papuan: kasu weri (meaning horned head)^[4] ) are flightless birds of the genus Casuarius in the order Casuariiformes. They are classified as ratites: flightless birds without a keel on their sternum bones. Cassowaries are native to the tropical forests of New Guinea (Papua New Guinea and Western New Guinea), The Moluccas (Seram and Aru Islands), and northeastern Australia.^[5]

Three cassowary species are extant. The most common, the southern cassowary,^[6] is the third-tallest and second-heaviest living bird, smaller only than the ostrich and emu. The other two species are represented by the northern cassowary and the dwarf cassowary; the northern cassowary is the most recently discovered and the most threatened.^[6] A fourth but extinct species is represented by the pygmy cassowary.

Around 90% of the cassowary diet consists of fruit, although all species are opportunistic omnivores, and take a range of other plant foods, including shoots and grass seeds, in addition to fungi, invertebrates, eggs, carrion, fish, and small vertebrates like rodents, small birds, frogs, lizards, and snakes.^[7] Although all ratites can eat meat, cassowaries, by definition, are the most omnivorous and predatory, owing to having the smallest and least herbivorous gastrointestinal tract out of any ratites that is akin to true omnivores^[8], as well as the fact that they are one of the only two ratites with a recorded hunting behaviour that is not mere foraging^[9]. Therefore, despite being considered an obligate frugivore, cassowaries consume a considerable amount of protein throughout its life stages, and throughout the year^[10].

Hence, cassowaries are both the largest fruit-eating bird, the largest omnivorous bird and the largest opportunistically predatory avian.^[11] Cassowaries are very wary of humans, but if provoked, they are capable of inflicting serious, even fatal, injuries upon both dogs and people. The cassowary has often been labelled "the world's most dangerous bird",^[6][12] although in terms of recorded statistics, it pales in comparison to the common ostrich that is recorded to kill two to three humans per year in South Africa.^[13]