“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)

Double amputee dog Cora Rose balances on her hind legs to watch Zach Skow repairing her cart on a street in Washington, U.S., May 15, 2019. Cora Rose serves in a prisoner therapy program founded by Skow called “Pawsitive Change” in California. (Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Breath at sunset, captures a sea turtle at a dive site called Black Rock. Kāʻanapali, Hawaiʻi, August 2013. (Photo by Christopher Doherty/Smithsonian.com)

Cholita wrestlers stage a performance on the street during the Electropreste celebration, which combines traditional and modern customs, in La Paz, Bolivia on March 12, 2022. (Photo by Claudia Morales/Reuters)

A young woman looks at her smartphone sitting in front of a mannequin use to keep social distancing at a Chinese cuisine restaurant in Tokyo, Japan, 27 July 2020. Japan's total number of COVID-19 cases crossed the 30,000 line showing the new coronavirus pandemic is spreading across the country and not only in Tokyo and Osaka megalopolis. (Photo by Franck Robichon/EPA/EFE)

Individuals and populations student winner. Limbing in the Tropics, photographed in Manaus, Brazil. While walking in the Amazon rainforest looking for bat roosts to set up mist nets to capture bats for scientific research, a faint and almost imperceptible noise suddenly caught this photographer’s attention. An anteater was climbing with exceptional ability in a tangled mess of branches and lianas. (Photo by Adrià López Baucells/University of Lisbon/British Ecological Society)

New Orleans police officers try to keep their heads down as they move in on a Black Panther headquarters during an exchange of gunfire in New Orleans on September 15, 1970. The shootout occurred as police moved in to make arrests on Tuesday morning following a series of incidents. (Photo by Jack Thornell/AP Photo)

A woman athlete aims an air rifle while competing in a local shooting championship in Yemen's Huthi rebel-held capital Sanaa on January 3, 2023. (Photo by Mohammed Huwais/AFP Photo)