Locals dress up as Mazcaras to celebrate Entroido on February 21, 2023 in A Xironda, Spain. Entroido is an ancient rural carnival celebrated in Galicia during the previous days of Ash Wednesday. Each town has its traditional characters and costumes. In the small village of A Xironda, locals dress up as Mazcaras with their characteristic masks, cowbells at the waist and whips, and then run through the streets. (Photo by Brais Seara Fernandez/Getty Images)

A goggle-wearing dog is strapped to a motorcycle driver's back as they wait at a stoplight in Bogota, Colombia, Wednesday, October 9, 2024. (Photo by Fernando Vergara/AP Photo)

Spain's acting acting Minister of Labor and Sumar MP Yolanda Diaz (Front-C) takes her seat at the Lower House in Madrid as they attend the Constitutive Session of the Lower House for the 15th legislature in Madrid, Spain, 17 August 2023. The Upper and Lower chambers celebrate their Constitutive Session for the 15th legislature after the general elections that took place last 23 July 2023. (Photo by Juan Carlos Hidalgo/EPA)

A woman looks on during a protest asking for the release of Israeil and German people held by Hamas in Gaza, outside the Germany embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, October 25, 2023. (Photo by Francisco Seco/AP Photo)

A Cucumber and a Chuta Cholero hug during the traditional festival “Desentierro del Pepino” (unearthing the Cucumber) to mark the beginning of carnival on January 21, 2024 in La Paz, Bolivia. People dug up the cucumber from the cemetery and walk through the streets with two characters, the Ch'uta and the Chola. (Photo by Gaston Brito/Getty Images)

Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey attend the “Jurassic World Rebirth” New York Premiere at Lincoln Center on June 23, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

An elephant calf, Tula-Tu plays with a pumpkin, as the Oregon Zoo celebrates Halloween during the 27th annual Squishing of the Squash, in Portland, Oregon, U.S., October 16, 2025. (Photo by Oregon Zoo/Handout via Reuters)

“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)