A dog dressed as Oscar the Grouch takes part in the annual halloween dog parade at Manhattan's Tompkins Square Park in New York, NY, U.S. on October 21, 2017. (Photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

Participants wearing fantasy costumes attend the 4th Hero Festival in Marseille, France on November 11, 2017. The 4th Hero Festival edition has attracted all sorts of people to role play their favourite characters from all kinds of movies and comic book legends. (Photo by Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters)

A woman holds her veil as she takes part in Huranga, a game played between men and women a day after Holi, at Dauji temple near Mathura, March 3, 2018. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

People spray water in the street ahead of “Songkran”, the annual Thai New Year water-throwing festival, in Kowloon City, Hong Kong, China, 09 April 2017. The pouring of water is a key element in the festival as it represents purification and the washing away of one's sins and bad luck for the year. The event also includes a “Miss Songkran” pageant where contestants are clothed in traditional Thai dress, and a winner is crowned. This year's “Songkran” will begin in Thailand on 13 April 2017. (Photo by Alex Hofford/EPA)

Balinese girls in traditional costumes gather during a parade for this year's last sundown in Bali island, Indonesia Thursday, December 31, 2015. (Photo by Firdia Lisnawati/AP Photo)

Participants climb over a wall at the “Tough Mudder” endurance event series in Arnsberg September 6, 2014. Competitors who took part in the endurance event saw themselves having to overcome various military style obstacles. (Photo by Ina Fassbender/Reuters)

Armed forces veteran Frank Simpson at the Portico library being camouflaged by body artist Carolyn Roper in Manchester, UK on May 16, 2016 as part of the #CountThemIn campaign launched on Monday by the Royal British Legion. (Photo by Jon Super/Royal British Legion/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)