A day-old lamb exploring new surroundings on the vernal equinox, considered the first day of spring, on March 20, 2019 at Coombes Farm in Lancing, England. (Photo by Andrew Hasson/Getty Images)

Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz is presented with the trophy by Catherine, Princess of Wales after he defeated Novak Djokovic in straight sets on Sunday, July 14, 2024. It was only Kate’s second public appearance this year following her cancer diagnosis. (Photo by Aaron Chown/PA Wire)

“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 boy holds his mother's leg as he cries in front of their damaged house after a strong 6.6 magnitude earthquake at Longmen village, Lushan county in Ya'an, Sichuan province. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

Employees prepare spacesuits at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on August 19, 2015. Members of the main crew of the 45/46 expedition to the International Space Station ISS, Kazakhstan's cosmonaut Aydyn Aimbetov, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Denmark's astronaut Andreas Mogensen from the European Space Agency, are scheduled to blast off to the International Space Station (ISS) on September 2, 2015. (Photo by AFP Photo)

Ecuadorian indigenous people celebrate the festival of the moon or Kulla Raymi, in Quito, Ecuador, 21 September 2021. A circle on the ground made up of fruits and inside the Andean symbol of the chacana, multinational geometric flags and a cross that symbolizes the four cardinal points, were the setting in which the festival of the moon, the Kulla, was commemorated this Tuesday. Raymi, on a hill in Quito. It is one of the four most significant festivities of the Andean agroecological calendar, which commemorates the beginning of life and exalts women as the maximum representation of fertility. (Photo by Jose Jacome/EPA/EFE)

People walk past a sculpture entitled “Reunion” by artist Sam Jinks at a preview of the Melbourne Art Fair in Melbourne on August 1, 2018. The sculpture is made of silicone, pigment, resin and human hair. (Photo by William West/AFP Photo)

A passenger not wearing pants sits in a subway train during the “No Pants Subway Ride” in Prague, Czech Republic, January 10, 2016. The event is an annual flash mob and occurs in different cities around the world in January, according to its organisers. (Photo by David W. Cerny/Reuters)