This is a Southern Cassowary. Like many of Australia’s animals it is weird, wonderful and potentially lethal. The bird weighs as much as 85kg, stands almost 2 metres tall and has a 12cm dagger like claw on each foot. Imagine an armed Emu. It lives in the dense forests of northern Queensland and Southern Papua New Guinea. As for eating the cassowary, it is said to be very tough. Australians stationed in PNG were advised that it “should be cooked with a stone in the pot: when the stone is ready to eat, so is the cassowary”
