Jungle royalty

THE WORLD’S SECOND-HEAVIEST bird remains shrouded in mystery. Living in the shadowy world of northern Queensland’s ancient rainforests, the southern cassowary still sometimes surprises scientists and wildlife carers with unusual and rarely documented behaviours.

For example, there’s the question of diet. Although cassowaries mostly eat fruits and seeds, they occasionally add a little protein from fish, crustaceans and even roadkill, says Wren McLean, an ecologist and conservation scientist with the Rainforest Trust in Mullumbimby, northern New South Wales. “They are known to go fishing by lowering themselves into a freshwater pool and opening up their feathers. They allow the small fish to come in and eat their dead skin cells,” says Wren, whose cassowary survey work has been supported by the AG Society. “Then they close their feathers, step out of the water, shake themselves and pick up the little fish.”

Dr David Westcott, a CSIRO zoologist