Five-year-old Julia cuddles a free teddy bear at a toy adoption station in a branch of Dobbies in Wallington, UK on December 4, 2023. Research shows almost half of parents (46%) in Britain plan to spend less on their children’s Christmas presents this year, and 47% believe their child would not mind receiving a preloved toy as a gift. (Photo by Michael Leckie/PA Wire Press Association)

This aerial image shows autumn leaves at their peak as they surround Tsutenkyo Bridge amongst the grounds of Tofukuji Temple, in the city of Kyoto on November 27, 2024. (Photo by JIJI Press/AFP Photo)

A tourist takes photographs of the Louvre Museum in Paris, France on July 3, 2022. (Photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

The Taipei first girls high school marching band perform at the 134th rose parade in Pasadena, California on January 2, 2023. (Photo by Michael Owen Baker/AP Photo)

Lea Meyer of Team Germany falls into the water obstacle during the Women’s 3000m Steeplechase heats on day two of the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 at Hayward Field on July 16, 2022 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Martin Rickett/PA Wire Press Association)

A butterfly is seen at a farm in Beykoz disrtict of Istanbul, Turkey on October 26, 2021. Cigdem Unlu runs a farm where 800 butterflies live and being presented to the visitors as the environment exclusively weathered for butterflies. (Photo by Elif Ozturk Ozgoncu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

An Indian girl dressed in traditional attire reacts to camera as she watches a cultural performance during Lohri festival in Jammu, India, Monday, January 13, 2014. Lohri is a celebration of the winter solstice observed by Hindus and Sikhs in northern India. (Photo by Channi Anand/AP Photo)

“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)