They have a casque on the top of their heads, black feathers, colourful wattles and necks and large feet. They belong to the ratite family along with the rhea, ostrich, kiwi, moa (which is now extinct) and the emu, ratites are flightless birds.
Cassowary parents share the role of parenting. The mother lays between 3 and 8 large eggs in a large nest, the father incubates the eggs and when they hatch, he cares for the babies until they are old enough to survive by themselves, at around 12 months old.
There are 3 types of cassowaries these are the:
- Southern Cassowary
- Dwarf Cassowary and the
- Northern cassowary
Only the Southern Cassowary is found in Australia.
They eat mostly rainforest fruit such as quandongs, and also eat small insects, other small animals and also road kill occassionally. Their scats are important because they plant trees from the seeds of fruit they have eaten, one type of rainforest tree is thought to depend on being digested by cassowaries to grow properly. Cassowaries are an important part of the habitat that they live in.
Casowaries need to eat a range of rainforest fruits to stay healthy and travel long distances throughout their territory. They are capable of swimming across rivers and making their way through dense rainforest to get to where they need to go. Chopping trees down affects their ability to find food and they are often seen in suburban areas particularly around Innisfail and Mission Beach. Cassowaries are one of the most dangerous birds on earth and are rarely aggressive but can become aggravated if they are provoked, for this reason people are encouraged to not feed them if they see them in the wild and to keep their distance.
Global warming may also impact on their habitat in years to come as they rely on mangrove and lowland coastal rainforest to find their food.
For more information about cassowaries, click here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary
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