“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)

People sit near a fully loaded in Madama near the border with Lybia on January 1, 2015. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian paid a surprise visit to northern Niger on January 1, to visit a base being built to combat the growing flow of weapons and jihadists from neighbouring Libya. Le Drian travelled from Chad to Madama, a desert outpost about 100 kilometres from Libya, where he saw in the New Year with troops at a French base. Madama is situated on the route used by jihadists and arms smugglers in southern Libya to reach northern Mali and Niger. (Photo by Dominique Faget/AFP Photo)

A member of the Brotherhood of Gentlemen Legionnaires of Asturias feeds its mascot after the governing body of the “Estudiantes” brotherhood decided that penance could not be carried out in the streets due to rain on Palm Sunday in Oviedo, northern Spain, March 20, 2016. (Photo by Eloy Alonso/Reuters)

After model Giulia Salemi attended the Venice Film Festival in a dress that looked like she had forgotten her underwear The Sun adapted a dress and Anita Kaushik 24 from Southfields went out on the London streets to share her experience on September 5, 2016. (Photo by Stewart Williams/The Sun)

A woman takes part in a “Brave Run” competition in Minsk October 4, 2015. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

A protester wearing a bra and with a message written on her chest can be seen during the first of hundreds of womens' marches organized around the world in a show of disapproval of U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia, January 21, 2017. (Photo by Dan Himbrechts/Reuters/AAP)

A plane is buffeted by the wind as it comes in to land at Leeds Bradford Airport as as flights were cancelled and commuters were warned they faced delays as winds reached nearly 90mph when Storm Doris battered many part of Britain. Thursday February 23, 2017. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Wire via AP Photo)

People wear face masks while participating in the annual Memorial Day Parade on May 25, 2020 in the Staten Island borough of New York City. Dozens of cars and nearly 100 members of the patriotic motorcycle group Rolling Thunder joined the event. This year’s parade was diminished in size and in person-to-person contact due to the coronavirus outbreak. Across the country, events honoring the nation’s veterans have been cancelled or scaled back as America continues to experience high numbers of deaths and new cases of COVID-19. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)