A male stag beetle walks on a branch in an oak forest near the Spree River in Kersdorf, Brandenburg, Germany, on June 8, 2025. (Photo by Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via 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)

Festival goers in Finsbury Park ahead of the Wireless Festival at Finsbury Park in London, United Kingdom on Friday, July 8, 2022. (Photo by James Manning/PA Wire Press Association)

Wide-angle category winner. Part of the Illusion by Marcus Blatchford (UK). Location: National Dive & Activity Centre, Chepstow, Wales. “This is the deepest inland dive centre in the UK. The dive plan was to explore the deep end, but this time I dived ‘unplugged’ (without my strobes). With the exception of this change to my camera technique, there were no planned shots I wanted to achieve – just a fun dive with ad-hoc photos along the way. Shortly after this photo was captured, in 6C water and two hours of decompression ahead of us, we turned and started the long ascent back to the surface”. (Photo by Marcus Blatchford/Underwater Photographer of the Year 2016)

A man with blood on his shirt is evacuated from Brussels Airport in Zaventem, Belgium, on Tuesday, March 22, 2016. (Photo by Dirk Waem/Belga/Zuma Press/TNS)

A female goalkeeper saves the ball at the Mathare Environmental Conservation Youth Center during a soccer match to celebrate the International Women's day in Nairobi, Kenya, March 8, 2017. (Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

American actress and singer Bella Thorne attends the GQ Mexico Men of The Year Awards 2017 on October 26, 2017 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Victor Chavez/Getty Images)

(L-R) Maria Silva, Milena Cortes, Maria Arteaga, Jackeline Bastidas and Gissy Abello pose for a picture at the Famproa dogs shelter where they work, in Los Teques, Venezuela, August 25, 2016. Venezuelans struggling to feed their families let alone their pets are dumping animals on the streets, in parks and at makeshift homes overrun with scrawny animals amid an economic crisis. An hour from Caracas in Los Teques, hundreds of dogs bark and run around the streets scavenging for food outside a makeshift shelter. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)