A cosplayer dressed as Domino attends 2019 Comic-Con International on July 20, 2019 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Quinn P. Smith/Getty Images)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)

A woman in traditional clothes wears a pin showing North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung (L) and former leader Kim Jong-il, on her dress as she welcomes foreign reporters to a temple during a government organised tour just outside Pyongyang October 8, 2015. North Korea is getting ready to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of its ruling Workers' Party of Korea on October 10. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Devotees in traditional attire play flutes as they take part in a parade commemorating the Neku Jatra-Mataya festival, the Festival of Lights, in Lalitpur, Nepal August 31, 2015. Devotees celebrate the Buddhist festival which marks the victory of Sakyamuni Buddha over Mara, by praying for the souls of departed family members and holding parades throughout the city. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

Soniya, 6, whose family moved to Islamabad from Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province to look for work, stands outside their house on the outskirts of Islamabad January 1, 2015. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

Young girls carry containers filled with drinking water beside the railway station in Agartala, India, April 20, 2016. (Photo by Jayanta Dey/Reuters)

A devotee carrying an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, jumps into the Sabarmati river to immerse the idol during the 10-day-long Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Ahmedabad, India, September 11, 2016. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

In this 1997 photo released by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a seal hunter, right, threatens a cameraman with a knife during the filming of a seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada. “Huntwatch”, a documentary by the organization about the fight to end commercial seal hunts, premieres in September 2016 on Discovery. The producers say it includes grainy but powerful archive footage that had languished in the basement of the group’s headquarters on Cape Cod for nearly five decades. (Photo by Richard Sobol/IFAW via AP Photo)