An aerial view shows local residents visiting a river side park in Taipei during the Lunar Mew Year on February 19, 2021. (Photo by Sam Yeh/AFP Photo)

Tate McRae performs at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards in Elmont, New York, U.S., September 7, 2025. (Photo by Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters)

Actress Cristin Milioti attends the HBO Max Primetime Emmy Awards Afterparty at San Vicente Bungalows on September 14, 2025 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by David Jon/Getty Images for HBO Max)

Canadian singer-songwriter and dancer Tate McRae performs with dancers during the first day of the iHeartRadio Music Festival at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. September 19, 2025. (Photo by Steve Marcus/Reuters)

Thai Buddhist monks wear face shields to protect themselves from new coronavirus as they walk to collect alms from devotees in Bangkok, Thailand, Tuesday, March 31, 2020. (Photo by Sakchai Lalit/AP Photo)

A woman cries as she watches a building burn after a protest over the death of George Floyd, Sunday, May 31, 2020, in La Mesa, Calif. Protests were held in U.S. cities over the death of Floyd, a black man who died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on May 25. (Photo by Gregory Bull/AP Photo)

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)