“A huge wasp measuring 2.5 inches in length, visiting the banana tree in my front yard”. (Photo and comment by John Matzick, USA/2013 Sony World Photography Awards via The Atlantic)

With the United Nations and Tudor City in the foreground, lightning strikes in the sky over the East River as a major storm approaches New York City July 2, 2014. Tropical Storm Arthur, the first of the Atlantic hurricane season, gathered strength July 20, 2014 and would likely reach hurricane strength over the next couple of days. (Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP Photo)

Female winner Ane Guro Moen at Hardangervidda Marathon on September 2, 2017 in Eidfjord, Norway. Hardangervidda Marathon goes through parts of the National Park of Hardangervidda, passing through glaciers and waterfalls. (Photo by Kai-Otto Melau/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)

Buyan, a male Siberian brown bear, is given a shower by a zoo employee in his enclosure at the Royev Ruchey zoo in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk June 24, 2014. The Siberian city has been experiencing temperatures of around 30 degrees Celsius over the last week. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Sgt. William Olas Bee, a U.S. Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, has a close call after Taliban fighters opened fire near Garmsir in Helmand Province of Afghanistan, May 18, 2008. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Afghan militia men stand near to the dead body of a beheaded Islamic State group loyalist in the Achin district of Nangarhar province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, December 27, 2015. An Afghan official says fighters for the Islamic State group and a militia controlled by a prominent lawmaker have beheaded a total of eight men in tit-for-tat revenge killings in the eastern border province of Nangarhar. (Photo by Mohammad Anwar Danishyar/AP Photo)

An attendee tries Acton's RocketSkates at the 2015 International CES at the Sands Expo and Convention Center on January 6, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The motorized skates that you strap to your shoes are powered by Lithium Ion batteries and can go up to 12 mph. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)