The sun rises over St Mary's Lighthouse in Whitley Bay on the Northumberland coast as a flock of Lapwing seabirds fly past on Wednesday, September 30, 2015. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)

“Warming up”. This photo I capture in the early afternoon, the animal species of lemurs fly. Photo location: Sambas, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. (Photo and caption by Hendy Mp/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A radio-controlled flying witch makes a test flight past a moon setting into clouds along the pacific ocean in Carlsbad, California October 8, 2014. Reuters was invited to photograph the testing of the life sized device by inventor Otto Dieffenbach lll. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

Wizz Air's Airbus A-321 flying along the Danibe river during an air show in Budapest, Hungary, May 1, 2016. (Photo by Laszlo Balogh/Reuters)

A flying lemur glides through the air in West Java, Indonesia in the first decade of October 2023. The photographer said the animal veered away from him at the last minute. (Photo by Dzul Dzulfikri/Animal News Agency)

The Sunda lemur uses a special membrane to “fly” between trees while on the lookout for food in Java, Indonesia in the last decade of June 2024. (Photo by Dzulfikri/Solent News)

“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 member of India’s Dongria tribe faints in trance during the two-day long Niyamraja Festival atop the Niyamgiri hills near Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district, Orissa state, India, Sunday, February 22, 2015. Every year, members of this indigenous group celebrate this festival sacrificing animals and birds in worship of their deity. (Photo by Biswaranjan Rout/AP Photo)