Welcome to cassowaries! Now one of the things we find when visitors come to the zoo, is that they'll go for things like sun bears, lions and so on. When it comes to birds, well if you want to see a bird look up! Birds are everywhere, but birds are awesome and we're not just saying that because we love birds! We're slightly biased! Tell us a little bit first of all about our cassowaries. Why should we care about birds as much as we care about pandas and the rest of the furry things?

Tell us about our cassowaries?

Birds are hugely important to the whole ecosystem. 

So this one behind me is a southern cassowary. It's one of three types of cassowary species - the southern, the northern and the dwarf cassowary. So this is the largest of the three, she's a "ratite" species so she's related to things like the kiwi, ostrich, emu and rhea and she's very dinosaur-like. 

Now these guys have a huge role to play in the ecosystem. They live in mangroves and rainforests and through Indonesia, New Guinea and into the northern parts of Australia, and they go around picking up fruits and berries, and swallow them whole. This girl can actually swallow whole quail as well, so she can swallow anything pretty much! She's got very gentle digestive tract, so she swallows them and digests them partially, and what comes out the other side is kind of a nutrient-rich compost with seeds in it. So as they're traveling through the rainforest, they poop out all these different seeds and leave little bits of new rainforest to grow, and within about two to three weeks you'll get little saplings growing. So they're very much responsible for replanting the rainforest out there! 

They're an amazing bird to look at, but they're also considered (if provoked) one of the most dangerous animals that we  have aren't they?

Are they dangerous?

They are! They are a "category one", so they are the one of the most dangerous - we do not work in with these guys. They have three big toes on their feet and the inside digit is a very long dagger. It can grow up to 12cm long and if you look at them they are very pointy and sharp, and this is their main method of defence. 

The females are heavier than the males at about 75kg, so they are a very heavy bird and their main method of defence is to jump up, kick and they can slice pretty easily with that. But they don't tend to do this unless they're provoked. Our male here is a little bit more aggressive than most for all sorts of reasons, but this girl she if she jumped up and kicked, you would know about it! 

Especially when the male is looking after the young, if you approached a male cassowary in the wild and he had his youngsters with him, he would feel very defensive and probably attack that way. 

But they don't tend to attack often, they're quite shy animals, you don't tend to see them too much in the wild unless they're provoked or you're walking through the rainforest actively searching for them. 

Also you can't outrun them, a cassowary has been recorded running close to about 30mph! So they can run, they can swim - they can't fly - but they can run and swim pretty fast! You mentioned about how the male tends to protect the young and we normally think of females tending to sit in the nest incubating and caring for the eggs and so on, but it's a bit of a switch role when it comes to the cassowary isn't it?

Do the males tend the eggs and young?

Cassowaries are actually solitary, for the whole year they spend time on their own and they only come together during breeding season. So their territories will overlap and the females will have several males in their territory. She will mate with a few different ones and then she'll produce eggs but it's the male that actually builds the nest! 

He'll make a nice little divot in the ground fill it with leaves and twigs and make it raised up so that they have nice drainage. Then she will come and lay eggs - up to about five, but Sydney has clocked at doing maybe seven or eight in the past! And then she will leave and that's her, she doesn't do anything else. 

The male then takes over and incubates for up to about 50 days and during this time he won't eat or drink. Our male occasionally gets up and maybe has one plum but he doesn't tend to eat for the whole 50 days! Then once the youngsters start hatching, it's the male's responsibility to teach them to be a proper cassowary.

So this is a model of a cassowary egg, and this is why the female leaves after she's done, because imagine having pushed out seven of those like Sydney does!

So thank you very much Cat! Next time you come to the zoo don't forget, birds rock, they're awesome! Visit them and especially the cassowary as it can run at nearly 32 miles an hour and it's considered so dangerous and yet so beautiful as well.