“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)

Street musicians with their faces covered with animal masks play to earn some money in central Vienna, Austria, November 8, 2015. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

President Calvin Coolidge rides in a car during his inaugural parade in Washington, D.C., U.S. in March 1925. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress)

A Russian army conscript called up for service in the Kremlin regiment and a woman say farewell at Yekaterinburg-Passazhirsky railway station in Yekaterinburg, Russia on November 15, 2018. (Photo by Donat Sorokin/TASS Russian News Agency)

Performers take part in a rain soaked Notting Hill Carnival on August 25th, 2014 in London, England. Despite the bad weather over 1 million visitors are expected to attend the two-day event which is the largest of its kind in Europe. The event has taken place on the West London streets every August Bank Holiday weekend since 1964. (Photo by Mary Turner/Getty Images)

A woman reacts after she was hit with pepper spray deployed by police as they cleared a street with protesters rallying against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China. A man found in possession of a Hong Kong independence flag became the first person to be arrested under Beijing's new national security law for the city, police said on July 1. (Photo by Dale De La Rey/AFP Photo)

Volunteers wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) carry the body of a victim of the Covid-19 coronavirus to a cemetery in Hlegu Township in Yangon on July 10, 2021. (Photo by Ye Aung Thu/AFP Photo)

Migrants bathe in the Huixtla River, Chiapas state, Mexico, Tuesday, October 26, 2021, as they take a day of rest before continuing their trek across southern Mexico to the U.S. border. (Photo by Marco Ugarte/AP Photo)