“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)

The provincial highest chimney collapses as it is demolished by explosives in Shenyang, Liaoning province, April 28, 2014. The 150-metre-high chimney used to be part of a local heating factory, according to local media. (Photo by Sheng Li/Reuters)

Christian people crowd a bush taxi on a road 55km north of Bangui as they are on their way to the capital where they expect to sell some products on the market on January 19, 2014. Fresh fighting broke out in the strife-torn Central African Republic on the eve of an announcement on Sunday of the candidates seeking to become the new interim president. Sectarian violence has gripped the landlocked country after a March 2013 coup launched by the mostly Muslim Seleka rebels, and the UN has warned that the bloodshed could turn into genocide. (Photo by Eric Feferberg/AFP Photo)

Green Bay Packers' Johnathan Calvin rides a bike to NFL football training camp on July 27, 2017, in Green Bay, Wis. (Photo by Morry Gash/AP Photo)

A participant poses for a photograph at the annual Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S. on April 1, 2018. (Photo by Gaia Squarci/Reuters)

A Rohingya Muslim from Myanmar (R), who tried to cross the Naf river into Bangladesh to escape sectarian violence, cries near his family in a Bangladeshi Coast guard station in Teknaf on June 19, 2012, before being sent back to Myanmar. (Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP Photo)

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A statue of the Risen Christ is carried during an Easter Sunday procession in Cospicua, outside Valletta, Malta April 5, 2015. (Photo by Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters)