An athletes competes in a log carrying relay race event at Peruibe beach during the Indigenous Games, near the Tapirema community of Peruibe, Brazil, Sunday, April 23, 2023. Hundreds of Indigenous athletes gather this weekend in the south of Sao Paulo state to hold their version of the Olympic Games. They will compete for medals in archery, tug of war, athletics, Indigenous wrestling and other sports. (Photo by Andre Penner/AP Photo)

Male members of the Zeleziar folk dance group whip and water the local girls dressed in traditional clothing, during Easter in Bociar, Slovakia on April 1, 2024. Boys and younger men visit the houses of young girls, whip them with fresh-cut decorated wickers and sprinkle water on them. By tradition, the whipping should give the girls strength, health, and abundance throughout the whole year. (Photo by Robert Nemeti/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A pair of otters share a soft kiss over seaweed on the Isle of Mull, Scotland in the first decade of October 2025. (Photo by David Akers/Solent News & Photo Agency)

Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner are seen filming at the “One Night Only” set in SoHo, Manhattan on November 07, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

U.S. Army soldiers carry an injured soldier who was shot in the leg, through a poppy field on April 24, 2011 in the Arghandab River Valley, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. The injured was evacuated to a waiting Blackhawk UH-60A helicopter by Task Force Thunder Brigade, Charlie company 1st of the 52nd Aviation regiment from Fairbanks, Alaska. It is feared that as weather improves with the approaching summer that the casualty toll will rise. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Hawk T1 aircraft of the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, the Red Arrows, perform a vertical loop during a practice display in Fitties, Greece on November 10, 2025. The team conducted the display practice as part of Exercise SpringHawk 2025. (Photo by AS1 Iwan Lewis/RAF)

King George V (1865–1936), king of Great Britain since 1910, with his queen-consort Queen Mary (1867–1953), at Collier Hospital on a visit to Dublin. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

“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)