Trees are reflected on the surface of a lake in the Okefenokee swamp lands in Georgia, USA on October 21, 2017. (Photo by Chris Moore/Solent News & Photo Agency)

1st Place in Wildlife: A male orangutan peers from behind a tree while crossing a river in Borneo, Indonesia. (Photo by Jayaprakash Joghee Bojan/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year contest 2017)

A tree frog uses a leaf as an umbrella in pouring rain in Karacabey floodplain near the city of Bursa, Turkey in the first decade of June 2023. (Photo by Savas Sener/Solent News & Photo Agency)

A blue observation point contrasts with the orange winter foliage of the metasequoia trees – dawn redwoods – at Huanghai Forest Park on the east coast of China in the second decade of December 2024. (Photo by Splash News and Pictures)

Citizens are making memories under plum trees in full bloom at Gijang Plum Orchard in Gijang-gun, Busan on March 16, 2025. (Photo by Kim Dong-hwan)

“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)

Scientist Jiri Sindelar checks a ring of a Boreal owl chick outside the “Smart Nest Box”, which allows the study of birds by using mounted cameras, in a forest near the village of Mikulov, Czech Republic, June 18, 2016. (Photo by David W. Cerny/Reuters)

A TV cameraman drives into Usain Bolt of Jamaica after the men's 200m final during the Beijing 2015 IAAF World Championships at the National Stadium, also known as “Bird's Nest”, in Beijing, China, 27 August 2015. Bolt won the race. (Photo by Rolex Dela Pena/EPA)