cassowary episode 2

The host of a wildlife podcast discusses various animals they have covered in previous episodes and introduces a new topic, birds. Specifically, they talk about the cassowary, a bird found in northern Australia and New Guinea. They describe its appearance, including its large size, colorful head, and unique crest. They also mention that cassowaries are flightless birds and are considered one of the most dangerous birds in the world due to their sharp claws. The host explains that cassowaries eat mainly fruit and fungus and play a role in spreading seeds in the rainforest. They mention that cassowaries communicate with a low boom and have a territorial nature. The host also mentions the mating behavior of cassowaries, where females lay eggs and then leave them. Overall, the podcast provides an introduction to the cassowary and highlights its unique characteristics and behaviors. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Wildlife Wonders. I am your host, Seriana, the one and the only, and we're going to get right into it. Thank you for joining along these last couple of weeks and going through the changes of a new podcast. We have talked about invertebrates in the ocean, known as the octopus. We have talked about a reptile, such as the bear dragon and the frilled lizard. We have talked about kangaroos and wallabies. So you're probably wondering, what are we going to talk about this week? And I know I said I wasn't going to go back to Australia, I know I said we were going to leave Australia for the time being, but we're going back because I found a new animal that I think everyone should know about and I want to share. So this week, we're going to talk about birds. And what bird exactly are we going to talk about? We know the common birds, such as eagles and different owls and hawks, but I found a, well, of course, I didn't, it's been around, but I discovered a new bird I didn't know about. And I was like, what's the best place to tell everybody else about it except for the podcast? So we're going to share it. The bird that I'm going to talk to you about today is the cassowary. You're probably like, what is a cassowary? It's a funny name. A cassowary is a bird that is found in the northern region of Australia, in the rainforest, mind you, and sometimes also in New Guinea. There's three types, some of them are found in New Guinea more than others. It is a mix between a dinosaur and an ostrich. If you've ever seen a velociraptor, like in Jurassic Park, or if you're into dinosaurs, it looks like a velociraptor from like neck up, and then it looks like an ostrich on down. And to put a description of that, I will be putting pictures on my Instagram page at Wildlife Wonders if you want to see it visually. Also if you want to see visually, I will spell out the name so you can look it up. So C-A-S-S-O-W-A-R-I-E-S is how you spell it plurally, and that's the cassowary. But I'm going to describe it the best I can. Ostriches and emus, they're big birds with two legs that have a bunch of black feathers on their big bodies. Their legs are kind of pinkish, whitish. They have their toes and then these long necks, right, and small little heads, a lot smaller than their body. The cassowary looks almost the same, except their necks are usually like a beautiful blue and they have like the waddles, but it hangs down like a rooster, the red, and then they have colorful heads with this huge peak on the top of their heads, a huge crest on the top of their head. It is made of keratin, it is usually brown. They have the same, they have beaks, and they have the same kind of eyes on the side of their head like an emu ostrich. Hopefully you can visualize that, how I'm describing it, but they're big. Getting right into it, like I said, they live in the rainforest, they're these big huge birds. There are three types. The first type is your southern cassowary. These are your biggest birds. They can get up to six feet tall, you guys, six feet tall, up to 187 pounds. Like this is a big bird. They're flightless birds at that. They're flightless birds that are on their two legs. So imagine standing tall, it is a tall and it is a big bird. They are known as one of the most dangerous birds, but I'll get into that later as to why they're one of the most dangerous birds. But one reason that doesn't help, I guess, their reputation of being the most dangerous birds or one of the most dangerous birds is that because they're just so big. They're big. They can't help that. That's not their fault. But that's the southern cassowary, a distinct feature of the southern cassowary. They have two waddles, which the waddle is the thing that hangs down their throat. I don't know why they call it a waddle. When I think of waddle, I think of the way ducks move, like they move back and forth like a teeter and totter. The thing that hangs down, I don't know if that's a scientific name. Do not quote me. That might be the nickname, but they call it a waddle. They have two of them things hanging down. So you have your southern, you have your northern cassowary, which your northern cassowary is slightly smaller, not that much smaller, but slightly smaller. And they have one waddle. The difference between other than the size and the one waddle, they all live in different areas. So like I said, the waddle is the thing that hangs off their throat. They have one of them, not two, one. And then you have your smallest, which are the dwarf cassowaries. They're around 57 pounds, 4.9 feet. They're smaller than most adults, but they're about the size of a, I would say elementary middle schooler. If I had to put a size to it, a comparison, they're still, they're still pretty tall for birds, but they're not as big as the other ones, but I wouldn't let that. I wouldn't let you, I don't want you to think just because they're smaller, they're not as powerful. They're still pretty powerful. These birds are flightless. They can run up to 30 miles. Let me say it again. They can run up to 30 miles per hour. These birds can jump up to seven feet. They can swim. So if you were to come in an area where you're invading their space, there's not much you can do. And just because they're going to outrun you, they're going to out jump you and they may or may not out swim you. It's impeccable. It's crazy to me. So they're great swimmers. They're extremely fast runners. They're big. They are in the rainforest. They eat fruit and fungus, which unlike crown cherry, I believe, I just thought they would eat more protein or there'll be more carnivorous, meaning they eat more meat because they're such big and strong birds, but they eat mostly fruit and fungus. They also eat some insects here and there. They're considered omnivores. They'll eat animals, but their main thing is large seeded fruit in which they help spread it around the forest. If you get my drift, they eat it and they let it go. So that way they're helping the rainforest by spreading these fruits by expelling them out one side of their body. If you get where I'm going. Either way, they have their head cast, they're brightly colored. They do a, if you haven't heard of ostrich, they do a low boom to communicate, but it's deeper than ostrich. I cannot mimic it. I will not try to mimic it. All I can say is if you follow my Instagram page, the wildlife wonders podcast, I will be posting a pictures and videos of this animal so y'all can visually see what I'm talking about. Um, but you can also look it up on Google or YouTube where you can listen to their sounds so you get a better understanding of where I'm coming from. So they're, they're have this low boom, um, that's their way of communicating. No one really knows for sure what the crest on their head. I don't know if it's, um, and it's hard to find, like people think it's for dominance is to help fight. It's just, maybe it's like a, something that was passed down from being relatives of dinosaurs. There might've been more of a use for it in the past. There's a lot of different theories on the use of their crest. Why some are bigger than others, but I'm not really 100% sure what it's supposed to be utilized for. I think for them, it's just part of it looks cool and there's nothing wrong with that. It's something that makes them distinct. You can tell them apart from other birds and be like, my crest is cooler and hangs to one side, whatever the case might be. Okay. Let them do what they want to do with their crest. Going along with that, their feet, this is the most important part, one of the most important parts about the Castaway and this is what everyone should know, and this is why they are considered one of the most dangerous birds in the world. They have three toes, one, two, three. On each foot, one of their toes is a, um, is a razor sharp claw. This razor sharp claw can grow up to five inches long. Could you imagine having a claw, a sharp razor sharp, say like you have like a knife sticking out of your, one of your fingers that is five inches long. When they feel threatened or feel like they need to attack something, they slash and cut with this claw. They jump up, they kick, they push with it. They don't have it. They can't fight with their hands, so they don't have hands, so they use their feet. They use their feet and they use their claws. They have splashed open many things and cut many things with this claw. That is their main way of defense. That is their main defensive behavior, main fighting strategy is their claws. Now will they, was their first instinct to fight everything in sight? Not necessarily, but they are territorial. So would I suggest you going close to one, expecting that you're going to pet it? Not really. I wouldn't suggest it. Zero out of 10, don't recommend, but that's what makes them so cool. That's also what makes them one of the most dangerous animals in the world because between their size, their strength, the power that they have in the claw can tear you to shreds like a paper shredder. Not a good, not a good look. So, and you're probably wondering, if they're so solitary, if they're so territorial, how do they stay alive? How do they mate? How do they go on about their day and get with other, how do they keep the population going? Well, boys and girls, they are territorial, but, and also solitary until it is time to mate. Then they come out into the wild and they find the males they need. The female finds the male that they need and they decide, yeah, you look good and big and strong. I'm going to mate with you. They get together. They do what they need to do to get to the eggs and this is where the tables turn. It is at this point, the roles have been switched. The female drops the eggs and leaves. Yeah, you heard that correctly. She abandoned her children. Unfortunately, that is the way they work. She drops the eggs and she leaves and she doesn't look back. She doesn't come to check on the young anymore. She doesn't help raise the young. That's it. Her responsibility is done. She is there to drop the eggs and leave and go on about her business and live her best life. Yeah. From that point on, she looks at the dad. The dad looks at her. She looks back at the dad and the dad's like, yep, I know it's my turn now. The dad takes over completely with caring for the young. He nurtures the eggs, he turns it, he cleans the keeps away from predators. He sits on those things and takes care of it for 50 days by himself, a single father doing what needs to be done. He sits on his eggs and nurtures his eggs. Once they are born, the babies stay with him for nine months and then they go on and be their own cassowary in the world. Now you're probably thinking like, okay, but does the mom come back at any point? Like does she do anything? Ladies and gentlemen, no, she does not. Matter of fact, she goes off and go mates with other birds, other cassowaries and has other babies and does the same thing. So at any time she can have multiple babies running around, all hers, all sisters and brothers and she don't care about none of them. Fun fact, sometimes when she sees her young after that point, if she does happen to see her young, I don't know if she recognizes them or she doesn't recognize them, but regardless, it has been seen that she has fought her young that she sees later on. So she doesn't want anything to do with these kids. They're not her responsibility. She said she did what she needed to do, help populate and then she's going to live her best life. Living her best life. So yeah, I thought that was kind of, I thought that was kind of different. Only 1% of birds do that, where, well, when I say do that specifically, only 1% of birds had the males raise the children and it's not a common thing. So this is a very rare thing among birds for that to happen. Matter of fact, to go into more rare thing in this specific species of birds, the females are the intimidating ones. They look at the male, the males look at them and the males like, yeah, they save my space and then leave. They don't share the female is the dominant one. She tells which she tells the birds, which ones is her areas. She told the mama dropped eggs and I'ma leave and she does, and she lives her life and females with other females. Not a good idea. It could end very badly and just in general, cassowaries with each other is not a good idea. But the same gender, female females, male and males doesn't end well. It usually will end in a fight or someone running away or both. So that's different for this type of bird compared to a lot of other, other animals. Now they can live up to 60 years in captivity. The wild is kind of unknown. Some people estimate 18 to 20 years. It's kind of hard to test that unless you're doing some kind of tracking or monitoring over the years to see like, well, of course, the time where they're born and developed maybe or some point in their life to the end of their life. As always in captivity, me, if I can do, unfortunately as pets and stuff like that, do not get this animal as a pet, you guys. It's not meant to be a pet. But in zoos, sanctuaries, pets, whatever the case may be, that's what captivity means. And then in captivity, you have to think about there is no threat. There's, there's those, they're getting an ample amount of food from their caretakers. They are being watched after if they get sick, they're being taken to the vet and they don't have predators there. So they don't have to worry about being killed. That is why animals typically live a lot longer in captivity than they do in the wild. Now they do have predators in the wild. They have crocodiles, they have pythons, they have dingoes, they have quolls. A lot of these animals can dig at them and can take them down. But the biggest threat is actually habitat loss. These animals are endangered. The southern type is very much so endangered. The northern type is vulnerable on its way to becoming endangered. Endangered mean there's, there's not that many in the wild, it's close to becoming extinct. Okay. The biggest thing is habitat loss and habitat being torn down or things are not the same. You have economy, not economy, the habitats are changing, climate is changing, various different reasons, but keep that in mind. They are as vicious as they might seem or people put them out to be, they are endangered. And finally, we're going to go into some fun facts. I have said a good amount of fun facts along the way. Another fun fact that I have not mentioned is that they're the third tallest bird in the world. They're the third tallest bird in the world, and they are the second heaviest lightless bird. If you learned something today, I'm glad if you didn't learn, go back and watch the, go back and listen to the podcast again, because I'm sure you'll learn something. But I am thankful for every one of you that tuned in today to listen to me talk about another species and go back to Australia. Hopefully you go look up the cassowaries and see how cool and beautiful these animals are. In general, share your knowledge. If you learned something today, share with someone else. They might want to learn something about animals. We will continue next week, every Friday, as usual, until I say otherwise. Every Friday, a new species, a new area, a new type of animal, and tune in then next Friday. As always, stay in tuned and stay in touch and also follow the Wildlife Wonders with the S podcast, Instagram page, so you can see all the videos and the visuals for any animals I talk about and stay in tune and stay in touch to like latest episodes, update, and also like to talk with y'all. So if you learned something, you want to share something, or you just want to communicate with me, reach out on there. That is Wildlife Wonders, Wildlife, the word, Wonders with the S podcast. All one word, on Instagram, that's where I can be found and that's where you see more cool stuff and things leading up to each episode each week. Like always, have a great day and thank you for listening. Bye!