Southern Cassowary Natural History Illustrations: Australian Big Bird

Summary: Southern cassowary natural history illustrations share a dark- and vivid-colored flightless bird that agro-industrialists stress, researchers study and villagers snare.

southern cassowary with chick; South Mission Beach, Cassowary Coast Region, Far North Queensland, northeastern Australia; Dec. 21, 2011: Donald Hobern, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Southern cassowary natural history illustrations allow armchair acquaintance with, and admiration of, Australian and New Guinean flightless birds that appreciate alone time and never avoid daily, healthy fruit, protein and water requirements.

Southern cassowaries bear the additional common names Australian, double-wattled, kudari and two-wattled cassowary, the Papuan name kasu ("horned") weri ("head") and the scientific name Casuarius casuarius. They count, as a curious collectible from Seram among Indonesia's Maluku Islands, among animal specimens classified, in 1758, by Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778). They dwell just below 3,600-foot (1097.28-meter) altitudes above sea level along the eastern Cape York Peninsula and north of Townsville in Queensland Province of northeastern Australia.

Southern cassowary natural history illustrations sometimes elaborate double-wattled, kudari, two-wattled cassowary homelands in eastern, northwestern and southern New Guinea and on the Aru and Maluku Islands.

Southern cassowaries favor dense, undisturbed lowland tropical mangrove stands, rainforests and savannah forests and flourish just below 1,600-foot (487.68-meter) altitudes above sea level on New Guinea.

Southern cassowaries get helmet-like casques, inner-toed claws longer and sharper than each foot's two other clawed toes, snapping, strong bills and ultraviolet and visible light-sensitive eyes. Gray, individualized, 5.1- to 6.7-inch- (12.95- to 17.02-centimeter-) high casques perhaps help as breeding displays, head-butting defenses and offenses, helmut-like protection against collisions and sound resonation. Cassowary communication systems include species-specific grunts, hisses, peeps, rumbling booms and whistles and perhaps involve identification of long-distance, low-frequency infrasound that head casques intend to intensify.

Southern cassowary natural history illustrations juggle two dagger-like, gray, 5-inch- (12.7-centimeter-) long inner-toe claws and two red, 7-inch- (17.78-centimeter-) long wattles (loose-hanging, lower throat, turkey-like wrinkled skin).

Australian, double-wattled, kudari, southern, two-wattled cassowaries know 5-plus-foot (1.52-meter) jumps vertically downward and upward, karate- and soccer-like powerful kicks and 31.07-mile (50-kilometer) running speeds per hour.

Black, coarse, glossy, mane-like, shaggy, stiff plumage, blue heads, gray bills, casques, feet and legs and red-patched blue throats let southern cassowaries live amid tropical lushness. Southern cassowaries and their genus's other extant species move toward fruit-filled bleeding-heart, buckthorn, cassowary pine, plum and satinash, celerywood, lemon-aspen, nutmeg, onionwood, palm, quandong and silkwood. Proper exercise, hydration, nutrition and rest nets mature southern cassowaries 4.9- to 6.2-foot (1.49- to 1.89-meter) heights and 4.17- to 5.58-foot- (1.27- to 1.70-meter) long bodies.

Southern cassowary natural history illustrations offer 37- to 154-pound (16.78- to 69.85-kilogram) weights, with 64- to 75-pound (29.03- to 34.02-kilogram) male and 129-pound (58.51-kilogram) female averages.

Dark, dense, habitat niches prompt solitary lifestyles for all extant cassowary species, except around full-fruited woody plants, at watering holes and during breeding and chick-raising seasons.

June through July queue up maternal clutches of four green 6.3- by 4.1-inch (16.0- by 10.41-centimeter) eggs for 47- to 61-day incubations by forest floor-nesting fathers-to-be. Single fathers raise black-, brown-, white-striped hatchlings into all-brown five-month-olds and emancipated 9- to 18-month-olds that relocate and, as two- to four-year-olds, reveal mature, vivid coloring. Fatherly droppings and ticks and carrion, frogs, fruits, insects, lizards, mice, rats, snails and snakes respectively strengthen chicks and adults stressed by agro-industrialists, traders and villagers.

Southern cassowary natural history illustrations tackle the genus's largest juvenile and mature cassowaries, whose sustainability the International Union for Conservation of Nature tags as "least concern." 

southern cassowary, 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 71, opposite page 142: 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:

southern cassowary with chick; South Mission Beach, Cassowary Coast Region, Far North Queensland, northeastern Australia; Dec. 21, 2011: Donald Hobern, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Casuarius_casuarius_(Carmoo_QLD,_Australia).jpg?uselang=fr

southern cassowary, 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 71, opposite page 142: Public Domain via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/birdsAustraliasSuppGoul#page/71/mode/1up

For further information:

"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. Volume 8, Birds I: 75-81. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group, 2002.

Gould, John. 1865. "Sp. 494. Casuarius australis, Wall. Australian Cassowary." Handbook to the Birds of Australia, vol. II: 206-207. London, England: Printed for the Author by Taylor and Francis.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/13966231

Gould, John. 1868. "Casuarius australis, Wall. Australian Cassowary." The Birds of Australia. Supplement: pages 141-142, Plates 70-71. London, England: Printed for the Author by Taylor and Francis.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/birdsAustraliasSuppGoul#page/70/mode/1up

Linnaeus, Carl. 1758. "2. Struthio casuarius." Systema Naturae per Regna Tria Naturae, Secundum Classes, Ordines, Genera, Species, cum Characteribus, Differentiis, Synonymis, Locis, Tomus I, Editio Decima, Reformata: 155. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/727062