Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm flightless Josh. There's flightless Chuck. Flightless. Jerry's with us and we're speaking about the cassowary, a type of bird that is you guessed it, flight less. There's no less flight in a bird than the cassowary. I am a right, flightless and dangerous, the most dangerous bird in the world. So where does it live? Of course Australia, that's right, uh in this sucker. If you want to look up a picture, if you're not driving or something, you should check it out. They are sort of known as one of the closest um relatives to dinosaurs bird wise that we have, specifically the velociraptor. Yeah. I love Jurassic Park, Chuck, how do you too? So um, you know what's funny is I hadn't actually looked up a picture of the cassowary until you said you should look it up. I was like, oh, yeah, I've still never seen one of these. Now I see it, I'm like, okay, I've seen this, but they're amazing videos. They look like a cross not across, but you're you can tell they're definitely akin to EMUs ostriches um and they're huge. They're really big. There there's there's three types and the one of the types, I think this the southern is the second biggest bird in the world, next to the ostrich or heaviest. I should say at least yes, they are super big and super dangerous. They they're listed as a Class two animal in Florida, along with alligators and cats. If you're asking why would they be in Florida if they're native to Southeast Asian Australia, is because people can if they jump through hoops, keep them as pets. But they can kill you, which is what happened to a seventy five year old man in Florida, in Florida whose pet Cassowary killed him dead. And all this chuck, by the way, is a demoustration of how why those in the no call Florida Western Australia. Is that true? No? But it it really it does line up. There's a lot of stuff that wants to kill you in Florida too, all right, and a lot of people who like to keep that stuff that wants to kill you as pets both places. And that's a bad combo. And I believe crocodile Dundee were retired to Naples, Florida in the last one coming together. I'm kidding, Okay, it would have been pretty awesome though. Uh. Back to the castoary though. It has these sort of bristly feathers that look like hair. If you see a video of them, if you're kind of from a distance, it looks like kind of a hairy thing. They have this blue face, a couple of red wattles on the neck, and then this big cask helmet on top of its head made of keratin that's really like a literal helmet. Yeah, that's probably what makes them seem the most dinosaurs are like, although they got a lot of dinosaurs features that that helmet, like the hard helmet. It's made of the same stuff like you said, Karen, and that's what their beaks made of two and same with their feathers too, but it's really tough structural skin. Um. I think there's dinosaurs that had that same exact thing. Yeah, it looks like a a fin of a tri serratops. Yes, just one of them, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's just the sarahtops right Well no, no, no, not the horns. I'm talking about the on the back. Are you okay? I've been better? All right? Uh. The thing that's so deadly about the castowary though, is not you're not gonna get headbutted by that cask. Is you're gonna get clawed by a three to five inch This is where the velociraptor thing comes in, this three to five inch claw that is super sharp. And all you have to do is look at a video of the guy on YouTube with a basically a big shield in this cassowary coming at him and jumping and kicking both of his legs with these clawset this guy and literally knocking us grown man backwards. To know how scary this thing can be. Yeah, it's like, um, I mean they're like, it's there. Those claws are super sharp, but their legs are also super powerful too, so they pack a really big punch that's also a really sharp punch that's been known to basically gut people like not only can it like make you bleed pretty bad, it can reach your internal organs sometimes too. And the reason they're flightless is even though they're big, their little wings only extend fully extent about a foot from their potty, so they have no chance of flying they don't. One of the other things too, by their feathers. You said, it looks like hair. It's really good to protect them because they live in the forests with a lot of dense underbrush, a lot of thorns, a lot of branches and stuff. And one of the the rees behind why they think they have that horn on their head. What's it call again? I want to say cask. The reason that one of the reasons they think they have the cask is um so that it can kind of run headlong through the forest without hurting its head. But then also, um, those those thick, heavy feathers also protect the body too from getting stabbed by thorns and things like that. That's right, so let's should we take a break. Yeah, let's all right. We'll talk more about the deadly cast a wary right after this. Okay, chuck um, So we're talking about the deadly cast a wary, which I mean, it is deadly, but I don't I don't think it's any more deadly. It's much less deadly even um or, you're much less likely to die by a castawary than you are from saying like getting infection from a dog bite or something like that. Right. Statistically speaking, yeah, I mean we we shouldn't disparage the castawary is deadly, like they can kill and they have those sharp claws, but they're not aggressive generally. They're not after you. Generally, if you come upon them while they're while they have laid their eggs or something, you may be in trouble, but they generally want to stay away from people. Um. There is another video that's pretty a little frightening. If they would have put like scary music to it, it it would have helped. But there was a woman on the beach in Australia, I guess, and she filmed the whole thing. But this castawary was just walking toward her and she's walking backwards and it keeps coming and it's pecking at the phone. But after having seen that other video, I'm just like on edge waiting for this thing to jump up and slice her stomach open. It's intimidating and it's a very large bird. And when it's coming at you with those kind of crazy eyes and its heads duck and back and forth and it's kind of pecking at you, it seems like a velociraptor in that moment. Yeah, I can imagine. Um. So, yeah, I think it's more just like it's remarkable that a bird can kill you and has before that, than it is like actually like a super deadly bird. What's the deal with that wattle? They're not sure, but one of the theories is that it's basically like a current mood indicator, like current mood effervescent, like a mood bring. It changes color brightness with their mood. Yeah, that's not too bad, um. Or to maybe say like I'm I'm robust and uh maybe like sexually perhaps, sure, like check on my wattle exactly. They're also known as a keystone species because what they do is they eat fruit, tons of fruit, and they walk around and cover a great area and poop that seed out. Uh. It goes right through their digestive tracks, and they deposit the seeds all over the place. So you get a much more diverse uh fruit habitat in areas where they are popular. Yeah, because yeah, I mean they're they're not only spreading the seeds around when they poop it out. It's got all sorts of nutrients to grow with, and it's just a great great um uh commence all lists set up, I guess, uh They also are pretty stealth. They have this apparently their call it's so low it's just on the edge of human hearing, so you may not even hear them coming at you. Yeah, and apparently though, like you can feel it in your chest if you happen to be near one when they call, like it rumbles in your chest. I love it. These things are great. Um. Did we ever say how big they get? Chuck? Uh? Yeah, he said six six six and or so. Yeah, that's just so enormous. But what I thought was really interesting is um and at the very least the Southern castawary species. Uh, the female is about a hundred and seventy pounds. The males are a hundred and twenty five pounds, and even more interesting, the males are the ones that actually raise the hatchlings. Did you know that? Well, I didn't until I mean, I knew nothing about this thing until I looked into it. But yeah, the female basically lazy eggs and it's like, my work here is done. It's on you, yep, raise the kids, and the males do. They raise these kids, and the female goes off in mates with more males other males, And it makes total sense from a natural selection standpoint, um, because that just means that more castawary chicks can be born, the more female cast wary can go off and and mate with more male castawaries, as long as the males are the ones raising the chicks. That's pretty great, great idea, and it's great because their numbers are dwindling. All three species are vulnerable or near threatened. Of course, humans have a lot to do with this loss of habitat because we're growing into their territory or they're getting hit by cars stuff like that. Um, dogs apparently if it's a young dog or a small dog, the cassowary, Uh, like, there are dog attacks on record, but if the dog gets bigger, they can be a threat to the cassowary. Yeah, especially young cassowaries. Yeah, it's all size. It's like whoever shoop up is the one threatened. It's the law of nature, that's right. So there are people working um to keep the cassowaries around, make sure they don't go extinct. And like you said, it's typically human encroachments. So people are buying back some of their native habitats and just trying to set them off as preserves and building ways around roadways, which is another big ing. We should do a short stuff on that sometime, basically like nature highways that are overpasses in the woods, over roads that go through the woods, and this is pretty cool. Yeah, and maybe maybe we just did the short stuff on it just now. I don't know if there's much more to say about it, but I just think it's amazing looking. I've seen pictures of them. They just look like grass covered overpasses, almost like what are overpasses are going to look like in when there's no more people left to look like the last of us are Station eleven. Sure you got anything else and did anything else? Well, since we've got nothing else, everybody. This owe to Cassowaries is out. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm flightless Josh. There's flightless Chuck. Flightless. Jerry's with us and we're speaking about the cassowary, a type of bird that is you guessed it, flight less. There's no less flight in a bird than the cassowary. I am a right, flightless and dangerous, the most dangerous bird in the world. So where does it live? Of course Australia, that's right, uh in this sucker. If you want to look up a picture, if you're not driving or something, you should check it out. They are sort of known as one of the closest um relatives to dinosaurs bird wise that we have, specifically the velociraptor. Yeah. I love Jurassic Park, Chuck, how do you too? So um, you know what's funny is I hadn't actually looked up a picture of the cassowary until you said you should look it up. I was like, oh, yeah, I've still never seen one of these. Now I see it, I'm like, okay, I've seen this, but they're amazing videos. They look like a cross not across, but you're you can tell they're definitely akin to EMUs ostriches um and they're huge. They're really big. There there's there's three types and the one of the types, I think this the southern is the second biggest bird in the world, next to the ostrich or heaviest. I should say at least yes, they are super big and super dangerous. They they're listed as a Class two animal in Florida, along with alligators and cats. If you're asking why would they be in Florida if they're native to Southeast Asian Australia, is because people can if they jump through hoops, keep them as pets. But they can kill you, which is what happened to a seventy five year old man in Florida, in Florida whose pet Cassowary killed him dead. And all this chuck, by the way, is a demoustration of how why those in the no call Florida Western Australia. Is that true? No? But it it really it does line up. There's a lot of stuff that wants to kill you in Florida too, all right, and a lot of people who like to keep that stuff that wants to kill you as pets both places. And that's a bad combo. And I believe crocodile Dundee were retired to Naples, Florida in the last one coming together. I'm kidding, Okay, it would have been pretty awesome though. Uh. Back to the castoary though. It has these sort of bristly feathers that look like hair. If you see a video of them, if you're kind of from a distance, it looks like kind of a hairy thing. They have this blue face, a couple of red wattles on the neck, and then this big cask helmet on top of its head made of keratin that's really like a literal helmet. Yeah, that's probably what makes them seem the most dinosaurs are like, although they got a lot of dinosaurs features that that helmet, like the hard helmet. It's made of the same stuff like you said, Karen, and that's what their beaks made of two and same with their feathers too, but it's really tough structural skin. Um. I think there's dinosaurs that had that same exact thing. Yeah, it looks like a a fin of a tri serratops. Yes, just one of them, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's just the sarahtops right Well no, no, no, not the horns. I'm talking about the on the back. Are you okay? I've been better? All right? Uh. The thing that's so deadly about the castowary though, is not you're not gonna get headbutted by that cask. Is you're gonna get clawed by a three to five inch This is where the velociraptor thing comes in, this three to five inch claw that is super sharp. And all you have to do is look at a video of the guy on YouTube with a basically a big shield in this cassowary coming at him and jumping and kicking both of his legs with these clawset this guy and literally knocking us grown man backwards. To know how scary this thing can be. Yeah, it's like, um, I mean they're like, it's there. Those claws are super sharp, but their legs are also super powerful too, so they pack a really big punch that's also a really sharp punch that's been known to basically gut people like not only can it like make you bleed pretty bad, it can reach your internal organs sometimes too. And the reason they're flightless is even though they're big, their little wings only extend fully extent about a foot from their potty, so they have no chance of flying they don't. One of the other things too, by their feathers. You said, it looks like hair. It's really good to protect them because they live in the forests with a lot of dense underbrush, a lot of thorns, a lot of branches and stuff. And one of the the rees behind why they think they have that horn on their head. What's it call again? I want to say cask. The reason that one of the reasons they think they have the cask is um so that it can kind of run headlong through the forest without hurting its head. But then also, um, those those thick, heavy feathers also protect the body too from getting stabbed by thorns and things like that. That's right, so let's should we take a break. Yeah, let's all right. We'll talk more about the deadly cast a wary right after this. Okay, chuck um, So we're talking about the deadly cast a wary, which I mean, it is deadly, but I don't I don't think it's any more deadly. It's much less deadly even um or, you're much less likely to die by a castawary than you are from saying like getting infection from a dog bite or something like that. Right. Statistically speaking, yeah, I mean we we shouldn't disparage the castawary is deadly, like they can kill and they have those sharp claws, but they're not aggressive generally. They're not after you. Generally, if you come upon them while they're while they have laid their eggs or something, you may be in trouble, but they generally want to stay away from people. Um. There is another video that's pretty a little frightening. If they would have put like scary music to it, it it would have helped. But there was a woman on the beach in Australia, I guess, and she filmed the whole thing. But this castawary was just walking toward her and she's walking backwards and it keeps coming and it's pecking at the phone. But after having seen that other video, I'm just like on edge waiting for this thing to jump up and slice her stomach open. It's intimidating and it's a very large bird. And when it's coming at you with those kind of crazy eyes and its heads duck and back and forth and it's kind of pecking at you, it seems like a velociraptor in that moment. Yeah, I can imagine. Um. So, yeah, I think it's more just like it's remarkable that a bird can kill you and has before that, than it is like actually like a super deadly bird. What's the deal with that wattle? They're not sure, but one of the theories is that it's basically like a current mood indicator, like current mood effervescent, like a mood bring. It changes color brightness with their mood. Yeah, that's not too bad, um. Or to maybe say like I'm I'm robust and uh maybe like sexually perhaps, sure, like check on my wattle exactly. They're also known as a keystone species because what they do is they eat fruit, tons of fruit, and they walk around and cover a great area and poop that seed out. Uh. It goes right through their digestive tracks, and they deposit the seeds all over the place. So you get a much more diverse uh fruit habitat in areas where they are popular. Yeah, because yeah, I mean they're they're not only spreading the seeds around when they poop it out. It's got all sorts of nutrients to grow with, and it's just a great great um uh commence all lists set up, I guess, uh They also are pretty stealth. They have this apparently their call it's so low it's just on the edge of human hearing, so you may not even hear them coming at you. Yeah, and apparently though, like you can feel it in your chest if you happen to be near one when they call, like it rumbles in your chest. I love it. These things are great. Um. Did we ever say how big they get? Chuck? Uh? Yeah, he said six six six and or so. Yeah, that's just so enormous. But what I thought was really interesting is um and at the very least the Southern castawary species. Uh, the female is about a hundred and seventy pounds. The males are a hundred and twenty five pounds, and even more interesting, the males are the ones that actually raise the hatchlings. Did you know that? Well, I didn't until I mean, I knew nothing about this thing until I looked into it. But yeah, the female basically lazy eggs and it's like, my work here is done. It's on you, yep, raise the kids, and the males do. They raise these kids, and the female goes off in mates with more males other males, And it makes total sense from a natural selection standpoint, um, because that just means that more castawary chicks can be born, the more female cast wary can go off and and mate with more male castawaries, as long as the males are the ones raising the chicks. That's pretty great, great idea, and it's great because their numbers are dwindling. All three species are vulnerable or near threatened. Of course, humans have a lot to do with this loss of habitat because we're growing into their territory or they're getting hit by cars stuff like that. Um, dogs apparently if it's a young dog or a small dog, the cassowary, Uh, like, there are dog attacks on record, but if the dog gets bigger, they can be a threat to the cassowary. Yeah, especially young cassowaries. Yeah, it's all size. It's like whoever shoop up is the one threatened. It's the law of nature, that's right. So there are people working um to keep the cassowaries around, make sure they don't go extinct. And like you said, it's typically human encroachments. So people are buying back some of their native habitats and just trying to set them off as preserves and building ways around roadways, which is another big ing. We should do a short stuff on that sometime, basically like nature highways that are overpasses in the woods, over roads that go through the woods, and this is pretty cool. Yeah, and maybe maybe we just did the short stuff on it just now. I don't know if there's much more to say about it, but I just think it's amazing looking. I've seen pictures of them. They just look like grass covered overpasses, almost like what are overpasses are going to look like in when there's no more people left to look like the last of us are Station eleven. Sure you got anything else and did anything else? Well, since we've got nothing else, everybody. This owe to Cassowaries is out. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.