Talk:Cassowary

largest land creature in Australia??
Obviously this is ridiculous. Humans, cattle and horses are all far heavier than a cassowary.

Even if this factoid is a poorly phrased attempt at saying that it is the heaviest extant native it still seems implausible. This article lists a cassowaries maximum weight at ~70kg while Wiki lists the weight of the red kangaroo as significantly higher than that.Ethel Aardvark (talk)

problem with descriptions: species are mixed
The article starts talking about 3 species, then focuses on the Southern species, but it looks messy. Some comments look like generalities for all species when they probably are only about the Southern species. This should be clarified. Pigkeeper 22:34, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Casques (Their horny heads)
I did a lot of updating on their casques using the scientific literature. Pigkeeper 02:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Species?
This page says there are three species of Cassowary, however, the National Zoo in DC has a 'Double Waddled Cassowary' (Casuarius casuarius bicarnculatus) also from New Guinea which is not on this list, so I think there are at least four species.


 * From the three-part scientific name, Casuarius casuarius bicarnculatus, we can see that they have classified it as a subspecies of the Common Cassowary, but I'll check on it when I get home to my reference books tonight, and make adjustments as appropriate. Thanks for the heads up! Tannin 04:07 Apr 30, 2003 (UTC)

Identification?
Anyone wanna identify the Cassowary I shot at Pennant Hills Koala Park? Shermozle


 * Still alive? ;-) --Robert Merkel 23:54, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just a minute, females are more brightly colored than males??? This is the opposite of every other bird, nearly every other -creature- on earth!


 * Human Women are normally more colorful than their male counterparts *ducks*

Other than humans. Dora Nichov 03:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Scat picture
oh, what a treat, fresh feces. honestly.riana 09:29, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I think this should be deleted. Dung is dung, and we all know what it looks like.Joeylawn 01:51, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, actually, cassowary dung looks like no other bird scat that I've ever seen. I've reinstated the picture along with very relevant information about the birds' scatology--how it disperses seeds and aids in the germination of a rare australian tree. I resized the image and changed the title so as to be less offensive to the squeamish. Pigkeeper 00:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Jumping
They can jump?!211.72.108.3 02:03, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Hybrid
I believe the cassowary can be hybridized with its close cousin, the emu, or maybe (unlikely) with other ratites. Has this ever been done?

There from different genera, so I don't think so. Dora Nichov 03:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * That comment is not valid. see Hybrid. - 20:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

It is a reasonable question. There are after all some intergeneric mammal hybrids e.g. bison x domestic cattle and intergeneric bird hybrids e.g. galah x cockatiel or mallard x muscovy duck. So theoretically it might be possible. I guess it depends on the length of time that they branched off from their common ancestor and other related factors. I came here to find an answer to the same question but as it's not here this would suggest that because any juicy evidence has not been sourced and referenced then this has probably never happened nor been recorded. If it was ever to occur it would probably have to be between birds that were reared together from hatchlings, or one hatched and reared by the complementary species. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.103.5.74 (talk) 10:30, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Predators
As far as I know, adult cassowaries have no predators (other than humans, of course, but humans are the predators of every animal on earth), so why do they need such powerful kicks? Dora Nichov 03:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps that's why they have no predators?

Perhaps. I didn't think of it that way! Dora Nichov 10:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The presence of the powerful claws which can inflict terrible injury does suggest a need for defense against predators if not during mating rivalries. Australia and PNG collectively used to have very large predators. Australia used to have an 11 metre long Varanus (like a gigantic komodo dragon), hoofed land crocodiles and the Thylacine for a start, before their disapperance from the record between 20 and 40 thousand years ago. The dingo is a recent introduction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.103.5.74 (talk) 10:52, 19 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Of course they have preditors, like big snakes, alligators, packs of dogs all hunt Cassowaries. Plus Australia used to have huge preditors at one time. Like the Pronghorn of North America, it runs fast because at one time it did have to contend with (American) Cheetahs and such

63.26.83.245 (talk) 04:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)eric

Okay, the most dangerous snakes in Australia tend to hunt much, much smaller prey. Outside of zoos, there are no alligators in Australia and whilst we do have crocodiles they tend to be located in the Northern territory. While we do have 'wild dogs' there are called dingos and are located further west in more dry areas than the cassowary. The point about the ancient predators may be valid however. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.233.152 (talk) 04:35, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Diet
"They also eat fungi, snails, insects, frogs, snakes and people." Cassowari are agressive, but can we have a source for one having eaten a human please. Swales 05:05, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Definitely not! I've never heard of any bird eating a human, unless you count vampire finch or vultures picking dead bodies. I suppose a large eagle may be alble to snatch a tiny baby but that's about it. Ratites can kill but they don't eat. Dora Nichov 09:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Bird Weight - More Accurate Units
The Cassowary's weight is given as 70 kilograms. Kilograms is a unit of mass not weight. It would be more accurate to say kilograms-force.

--- To quote from the Kilogram article:

"Since masses are rarely measured to an uncertainty of better than one percent, it is technically just as valid to state that a one-kilogram object on Earth has a weight of one kilogram-force as it is to state that it has a mass of one kilogram. Accordingly, it may correctly be assumed that when someone speaks or writes of a “weight” in kilograms, they are referring to the gravitational load of the kilogram and the proper “kilogram-force” is implied."

This is why if you ever visit a country that uses the SI(assuming you live in a non-SI country), you'll notice that the use of the term "kilograms-force" to refer to weight never happens. - Gleeok —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gleeok (talk • contribs) 07:35, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Second tallest bird?
I thought the largest bird after the ostrich was the emu. At least, that's what the emu article says. Which is correct, and how do we correct the emu article if that one is NOT correct, since it has a padlock on it? Not050 (talk)Not050Not050

New pictures
I've recently returned from a trip to Australia and took a few pictures of C. Casuarius in the Rainforest Habitat in Port Douglas. They are not great (the birds were not particularly cooperative), but may be useful. I've uploaded them to the Commons as Image: Southern Cassowary1.JPG, Image: Southern Cassowary2.JPG and Image: Southern Cassowary3.JPG. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:24, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Cassowary
67.167.152.133 (talk) 19:41, 4 October 2008 (UTC)JF--67.167.152.133 (talk) 19:41, 4 October 2008 (UTC)I think that these are very intense yet amazingly beautiful animals. Sure they are extremely dangerous and all, but. I guess it's like a skunk. Nobody cares about the skunk because they are smelly, but they really are cute!

Order
recently updated the taxobox on this page to change the order from Struthioniformes to Casuaniformes. I have reverted these changes for the time being. I understand that the taxonomy of birds is a tricky subject, but it strikes me that this change is not "non-controversial" and should be discussed here first. Please express any opinions regarding this change here. If no objection is made, I will restore this change. I will also include this topic in discussion at WP:WikiProject Birds. WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 18:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

In-the-wild at Mission Beach photos
We were fortunate to see cassowaries in the wild, twice (March 2011, just 6 weeks after the hurricane). The first encounter resulted in dozens of images, 2 shown here in the above photos. The second encounter occured when the light was bad, plus time worked against us as the cassowary with its 2 chicks (brown and cute!) vanished into the bush. The two photos above are from the first encounter about noon in south Mission Beach: broad daylight. We parked. The beast circled our car. We had plenty of time to take photos (my son's are better with his nice 35 mm digital). To reinterate: this is just a few months after the severe damage of the 2011 hurricane (hiking paths blocked, extreme forest damage with defoliation that looked like Vermont USA in the winter, destroyed homes and businesses, abandoned structures, absolutely-ruined beaches (the hurricane leaving a wide skirt of sand between the ocean and a sharply-escarpted ocean-front of sand/rubble/trees. A mess. [Intuition: mother nature was in her own sweet time fixing this.] ). We find it remarkable that any wildlife survived the destruction. But apparently their survival abilties are well-honed. Both cassowaries we saw within 30 km of one another. the 2nd with its 2 chicks about 30km to the south, just north of Cardwell. Bill Wvbailey (talk) 00:41, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Many internet entries about cassowaries state that they...
I removed the sentence:

"Many internet entries about cassowaries state that they can disembowel a human or dog with one kick, with the long second toe claw cutting the gut open."

Since many "internet entries" about just about everything state almost anything.

66.108.243.166 (talk) 18:51, 6 May 2011 (UTC)Moi

Better lead image
The lead image is a very striking and pleasing image, but is it the best for an encyclopeadia? The angle it is taken from gives no indication about the length of the neck or the shape of the body. I found the following image in Commons and I am proposing it should replace the current lead image. File:Casuarius casuarius -Artis Zoo, Netherlands-8a.jpg __DrChrissy (talk) 16:33, 18 August 2013 (UTC) Please note - I am NOT suggesting the image that might appear next to this message. This was posted by a previous editor. __DrChrissy (talk) 16:34, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Inspiration for Japanese priest hat?
Has anyone seen those Japanese priests who wear hats that look exactly like a Cassowary crest? Is this just a coincidence? When did the Japanese first encounter these birds? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.246.239.235 (talk) 03:29, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

A less equivocal stance on whether Cassowaries are dangerous?
The section on attacks starts with a quotation about the Cassowary's "murderous" claws, then proceeds to walk back the claims in the quotation without unequivocally contradicting it. It looks to me as if the quotation is a ridiculous exaggeration. The article should take a clearer stance on the matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.254.202.133 (talk) 20:35, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Cassowary attack refs
Kofron, C. P. 1999. Attacks to humans and domestic animals by the southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius johnsonii) in Queensland, Australia. Journal of Zoology 249, 375-381. file:///C:/Users/Chris/Downloads/n49-1-kofron.pdf

Kofron, C. P. 2003. Case histories of attacks by the Southern cassowary in Queensland. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 49, 339-342.

Reptiliae or Aves?
The box on the right says (and apparently cannot be edited): Class: Reptiliae Class: Aves Now what is it, a two-legged croc with feathers, or a bird with the upper body of a snake? At least both lay eggs... --jayaitch (talk) 11:20, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Well spotted. It is also interesting that the text can not be edited - I have not encountered this before. 18:17, 20 September 2016 (UTC) – comment by DrChrissy (talk)
 * This article uses Automatic taxobox which aims to remove redundancy between infoboxes by having the entries determined automatically. I do not know the details, but to the right of the "Scientific classification" heading in the infobox is a pencil icon. Clicking that leads to Template:Taxonomy/Casuarius which was created by Pvmoutside on 17 May 2016. Someone with knowledge of the system needs to sort out what is going on. Clicking "Related changes" in the tools section of the left-sidebar on the article shows some templates recently edited, but I don't see anything relevant. However, Wikid77 was working on some templates and may be able to enlighten us. Johnuniq (talk) 23:32, 20 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Technically, birds are reptiles now: In the past several years, the taxonomy has changed so that bird class Aves is now under class Reptilia, as the scientific consensus has decided "dinosaurs are reptiles, and birds are dinosaurs, and therefore birds are reptiles" See article: "Are birds reptiles - UCSB Science Line - University of California Berkeley" (2015), quote, "Birds descended from the very first reptile". Hence, a cassowary, in class Aves, is now under class Reptilia. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:00, 21 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Should be aves in my view....the project has been trying to accommodate a dinosaur (therefore a reptile) advocate (see above).....it maybe has been changed due to that. You can change the automatic taxobox if you know where to look BTW.....Pvmoutside (talk) 00:05, 21 September 2016 (UTC)


 * This is an ongoing issue. The approach Wikipedia takes should not be decided here by just one or two users. I have opened another discussion on what should be an appropriate forum, assuming there remain editors able in this area yet to be chased from Wikipedia. --Epipelagic (talk) 05:41, 21 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the enlightenment, both regarding the technical possibility to edit the taxonomy (at least theoretically) and the new systematics. When I had advanced classes in biology Linné was good enough. And it should be still good emough for me. Why, clade isn't even in the dictionary! --jayaitch (talk) 16:38, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

"one of the most dangerous animals, kicks fatal to humans"
As detailed further in the text, one death has been assigned to a cassowary, in what appears to be extraordinary circumstances (children attacking bird, child lying on the ground, kick hitting a major blood vessel). Therefore, unless there is other supporting referencing, to claim that the cassowary is the 2nd most dangerous animal in captivity, after the big cats, and that it's kicks are fatal to humans (multiple deaths in other words) is nonsense. Brunswicknic (talk) 11:36, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I started watching this article after noticing sporadic edits adding silliness, mostly intended as a joke by the person adding the text. I recommend removing anything that looks undue. Johnuniq (talk) 04:10, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * ”Be very wary of the cassowary,” said Rosa Klebb in Ian Fleming’s First Ed... I couldn’t tell you now which book it was I read... Nor could I Lenya advice on how they’re fed....
 * Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 15:20, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Trivia
Why was reference to John Grant song removed? It is directly relevant to the section. Please leave an explanation if you're going to just delete relevant information.
 * That's the point - it is NOT relevant, in that it does not provide information on the topic, or play any substantial role in how the topic is perceived or treated. The bar for trivia (which is what this is) is that they need to be impactful. See this section on "popular culture" items for examples and details. In a nutshell, if item X is mentioned in a song/book/cartoon/whatever, that is very rarely considered worthy of inclusion in the article on X, unless there's a lot of that and it has had an impact on public perception. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:23, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
 * (And as a reminder - now that your addition has been reverted, please don't just ram it in again before discussion has concluded (see WP:BRD). -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:25, 8 May 2019 (UTC))

Well this article appears to have a bunch of bellend bird-fancying internet edgelords watching over it. Best I move on....
 * 'Tis well considered. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:58, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

This is a bad topic stop talking about it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.109.130.35 (talk) 13:42, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

The lede
The opening sentence is a juxtaposition of taxonomic jargon and obscure anatomical features. In Plain Speaking, this would say: “A cassowary is a very large flightless Indo-Australian bird somewhat similar to its more familiar cousins, emus and ostriches.” It’s exact geographic distribution can be elided to the appropriate text paragraph; it’s not quite accurate anyway. The short description says, “genus of birds”; blah and bland - it tells me nothing about this bird. How about an echo of what I just wrote: “large flightless Indo-Australian birds”. Sbalfour (talk) 14:41, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

No sense of scale in lead image
For the most dangerous bird on Earth with an average height of six feet, the lead image fails to bring this point home to the reader. Viriditas (talk) 10:18, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

CASSOWARY
WHAT MAKES IT DANGEROUS TO HUMANS? WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE (LIMBS, HORNS, CLAWS, COLOUR, SIZE, BODY COVERING) ? WHETHER IT HAS BACK BONE AND SKELETON ? HATCH FROM EGGS OR YOUNG ARE BORN ? WHAT IS MOUTH IS LIKE ? WHAT IT EATS ? 154.80.76.166 (talk) 17:42, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: University Writing 1020 Communicating Feminism TR 1 pm
— Assignment last updated by Barnanimall (talk) 14:34, 29 September 2023 (UTC)