Cassowaries (), genus Casuarius, are ratites (flightless birds without a keel on their sternum bone ) that are native to the tropical forests of New Guinea (Papua New Guinea and Indonesia ), East Nusa Tenggara, the Maluku Islands, and northeastern Australia.There are three extant species. The most common of these, the southern cassowary, is the third-tallest and second -heaviest living bird, smaller only than the ostrich and emu.
Cassowaries feed mainly on fruit, although all species are truly omnivorous and will take a range of other plant food, including shoots and grass seeds, in addition to fungi, invertebrates, and small vertebrates. Cassowaries are very wary of humans, but if provoked they are capable of inflicting serious injuries, including fatal, to both dogs and people. It has often been labeled "the world 's most dangerous bird ".
Taxonomy, systematics, and evolution
The genus Casuarius was erected by the French scientist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in his Ornithologie published in 1760. The type species is the southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius). The Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus had introduced the genus Casuarius in the sixth edition of his Systema Naturae published in 1748, but Linnaeus dropped the genus in the important tenth edition of 1758 and put the southern cassowary together with the common ostrich and the greater rhea in the genus Struthio. As the publication date of Linnaeus's sixth edition was before the 1758 starting point of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, Brisson, and not Linnaeus, is considered as the authority for the genus.Cassowaries (from Malay kasuari) are part of the ratite group, which also includes the emu, rheas, ostriches, and kiwi, as well as the extinct moas and elephant birds. Three extant species are recognised, and one extinct:
Most authorities consider the taxonomic classification above to be monotypic, however, several subspecies of each have been described, and some of them have even been suggested as separate species, e.g., C. (b) papuanus.
