Northern Cassowary Natural History Illustrations: New Guinean Big Bird

Summary: Northern cassowary natural history illustrations show a big, flightless bird that agro-industrialists stress, researchers study and villagers snare.

northern cassowary (Casuarius unappendiculatus); Bali Bird Park, Gianyar Regency, Bali, Indonesia; March 4, 2004: http://www.viajar24h.com, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Northern cassowary natural history illustrations assume fantastic aspects even though they articulate the actual appearances and the area vegetation that acquaintance with Australia's and New Guinea's rainforest biogeographies and tropical wildlife anticipates.

Northern cassowary natural history illustrations become big-bird admirers' first briefings on gold-necked, golden-neck, northern, one-wattled or single-wattled cassowaries of Batanta, Japen, northern New Guinea and Salawati. Northern cassowaries, classified in 1860 by Edward Blyth (Dec. 23, 1810-Dec. 27, 1873), museum zoology curator at Calcutta's Asiatic Society in India. They dwell in undisturbed lowlands within Australian and insular and mainland New Guinean rainforests and swamp forests up to 1,640.42 feet (500 meters) above sea level.

Northern cassowary natural history illustrations emphasize the enigmatic, exotic member of the Casuariidae cassowary and emu flightless bird family's helmet-like head casque and large-footed long legs.

Papuan furnishes the words kasu ("horned") and weri ("head") for gold-necked, golden-neck, northern, one-wattled or single-wattled cassowary's common name and  Casuarius unappendiculatus ("one-appendaged [one-wattled]") scientific name.

Gray, horn-fleshed, spongy casques perhaps give northern cassowaries battering rams through meadow, palm forest, rainforest, savannah and swampy woodland underbrush, battle weapons and breeding display features. Casques perhaps have motorcycle helmet-like features against falling fruit from, or high-speed collisions with, cassowary laurel, lemon-aspen, myrtle, nutmeg, onionwood, pine, plum, quandong, satinash and silkwood trees. Long-distance, low-frequency infrasound-amplifying resonation perhaps integrates individual color-, shape- and size-specific casques additionally into 40-plus-year life cycles that include species-specific booms, grunts, hisses, peeps and whistles.

Darkened irises, necks and wattles (loose, turkey-like neck flesh), feces-flinging, fluffed-out feathers, high-jumping, high-speed noisy running and soccer game-like kicks join head-butting as defensive, offensive behaviors.

Northern cassowary natural history illustrations keep in the northern cassowary's 3.94- to 4.72-inch- (10- to 12-centimeter-) long dagger-like, defensive, offensive, inner-toed claw on three-clawed, three-toed feet.

Gold-necked, golden-neck, northern, one-wattled, single-wattled cassowaries look lugubriously lush with black, coarse, glossy, hard, shaggy, stiff, thick hair-like plumage with five to six large wing feathers. They manage bites, retrievals and sounds through gray, paired lower and upper bills and move on two big, gray feet and two gray, long, thickened legs. They need, in dark, dense forests and woodlands, big, black-pupiled, ultraviolet and visible light-sensitive eyes on blue-skinned, hairless, small heads atop flexible, hairless, vividly red necks.

Northern cassowary natural history illustrations observe 4.7- to 5.4-inch- (11.94- to 13.72-centimeter-) long bills and 11- to 13.1-inch- (27.4- to 33.27-centimeter-) long feet (minus claws, toes).

Maturity produces 4.9- to 6.6-foot (1.5- to 2.01-meter), 4.89-foot- (1.49-meter-) long, 66- to 82-pound (29.94- to 37.19-kilogram) males and 47- to 154-pound (21.32- to 69.85-kilogram) females.

May and June maximally queue up four clutches of 4 to 20 green eggs for 47- to 56-day incubations on forest floors by each clutch's father-to-be. Black-, brown-, white-striped chicks remain with their fathers, reveal all-brown bodies as five-month-olds, relocate as 9- to 18-month-olds and reveal adult colors as two- to four-year-olds. Paternal feces and ticks and carrion, frogs, fruits, insects, lizards, mice, rats, snakes and snails respectively sustain chicks and adults stressed by agro-industrialists and cassowary-hunting villagers.

Northern cassowary natural history illustrations tender the gold-necked, golden-neck, northern, one-wattled, single-wattled cassowary homelands and physiques of a flightless bird that researchers track and villagers trap.

northern cassowary (Casuarius unappendiculatus), illustration by English ornithologist and avian artist John Gould (Sept. 14, 1804-Feb. 3, 1881), lithography by English zoological illustrator Henry Constantine Richter (June 7, 1821-March 16, 1902); J. Gould's The Birds of Australia Supplement (1868), Plate 75, opposite page 146: Public Domain via Internet Archive

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

northern cassowary (Casuarius unappendiculatus); Bali Bird Park, Gianyar Regency, Bali, Indonesia; March 4, 2004: http://www.viajar24h.com, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Casuarius_unappendiculatus_-Northern_Cassowary_-head_to_toe.jpg

northern cassowary (Casuarius unappendiculatus), illustration by English ornithologist and avian artist John Gould (Sept. 14, 1804-Feb. 3, 1881), lithography by English zoological illustrator Henry Constantine Richter (June 7, 1821-March 16, 1902); J. Gould's The Birds of Australia Supplement (1868), Plate 75, opposite page 146: Public Domain via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/birdsAustraliasSuppGoul#page/75/mode/1up

For further information:

Blyth, Edward. 1860. "XXIV. Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, Etc.: Mr. Blyth in his last letters (dated Calcutta, Jan. 8th & 21st) speaks of an apparently new species of Cassowary (Casuarius) [Casuarius unappendiculatus] . . ." The Ibis, vol. II, no. VI (April 1860): 193. London, England: Trübner and Co.; Paris, France: Fr. Klincksieck; Leipzig, Germany: F.A. Brockhaus; New York NY: B. Westermann & Co.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8594339

"Cassowaries." Tropical Topics 2012. Cairns, Queensland, Australia: Wet Tropics Management Authority.
Available @ https://www.wettropics.gov.au/site/user-assets/docs/Cassowaries.pdf

Davies, S.J.J.F. (Stephen John James Frank). "Cassowaries (Casuariidae)." Pages 75-81 In: Michael Hutchins, Jerome A. Jackson, Walter J. Bock and Donna Olendorf, eds. Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. Second edition. Volumes 8, Birds I: 75-81. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group, 2002.

Gould, John. 1868. "Casuarius Uniappendiculatus, Blyth. One-carunculated Cassowary." The Birds of Australia. Supplement: pages 145-146, Plates 74-75. London, England: Printed for the Author by Taylor and Francis.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/birdsAustraliasSuppGoul#page/74/mode/1up

Marriner, Derdriu. 3 June 2017. "Southern Cassowary Natural History Illustrations: Australian Big Bird." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/06/southern-cassowary-natural-history.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 10 June 2017. "Dwarf Cassowary Natural History Illustrations: New Guinean Little Bird." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/06/dwarf-cassowary-natural-history.html