Northern cassowary

Appearance

It has hard and stiff black plumage, blue facial skin and a casque on top of the head. It has a bright red or yellow colored neck and wattle. The feet are huge and strong with long, dagger-like claw on its inner toe. The sexes are similar. The male, at 30 to 37 kg, is smaller than female, at an average of 58 kg, making it the world's fourth-heaviest living bird species after the common ostrich, Somali ostrich and the similarly-sized southern cassowary. These birds measure 149 cm long and stand 1.5–1.8 m in height. Compared to the southern cassowary, the northern cassowary has a slightly shorter bill, at 12 to 13.7 cm, but a slightly longer tarsal length, at 28 to 33.2 cm.

Status

Due to ongoing habitat lost and overhunting in some areas, the Northern Cassowary is evaluated as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, with hunting being the biggest threat. Native people use the bones and eggs, and take the chicks to be raised for meat. As logging opens up more areas of the forest, hunting will be more of a problem. Their occurrence range is 186,000 km2 and a 2000 estimate placed their numbers at 9300.

Behavior

As with other cassowaries, it is a shy and solitary bird. Their diet consists mainly of fruits and small animals. They make grunting and hissing sounds, like other cassowaries.

In breeding season, the polygamous female lays three to five green eggs on a well camouflaged nest prepared by male, she leaves the nest and eggs to find another mate. The male raises the chicks alone for about nine months.

Habitat

The northern cassowary is distributed and endemic to coastal swamp and lowland rainforests of northern New Guinea and the islands of Yapen, Batanta and Salawati. They prefer elevations below 490 m.