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The Cassowary has a horny helmet on top of its head that helps it push through the undergrowth. The blue bare skin and red wattles add some colour round the head.
Image by ozwildlife - Some rights reserved.
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The helmet grows with age. The helmet is fairly tall on this bird.
Image by ozwildlife - Some rights reserved.
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Photographed at Currumbin Sanctuary, Gold Coast, Australia
Image by ozwildlife - Some rights reserved.
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Photographed at Currumbin Sanctuary, Gold Coast, Australia
Image by ozwildlife - Some rights reserved.
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CASSOWARY FACTS |
Description
The Cassowary is a large flightless rainforest bird about the size of an Emu. It has brilliant blue and purple head and neck and red wattles. The body has black feathers. Cassowary feathers differ from other birds in that they have a quill that splits in two.
Other Names
Southern Cassowary. (The northern ones come from Papua New Guinea!)
Size
1.2 - 1.5m tall
Habitat
Thick rainforest
Food
Mainly fruit, berries, vegetation.
Breeding
3 - 5 large pale green eggs laid in nest made of leaves on rainforest floor. The males incubate the eggs and raise the chicks.
Range
Rainforests of far North Queensland
Credits:
Map is from Atlas of Living Australia website at https://biocache.ala.org.au licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Notes
Cassowaries are important to the rainforest as they distribute the seeds of more than 70 species of trees whose fruit is too large for any other animal to eat
Conservation Status
The conservation status in the 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals is "vulnerable".
Classification
| Class: | Aves | | Order: | Struthioniiformes | | Family: | Casuariidae | | Genus: | Casuarius | | Species: | casuarius | | Common Name: | Cassowary |
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