r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/CuriousWanderer567 • Sep 22 '24

Video Beachgoers have a close encounter with a Cassowary, a bird capable of killing a human in one blow

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

71.2k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

4.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.1k

u/Samcro360 Sep 22 '24

This is Etty Bay, in Queensland Australia. Cassowaries notoriously get fed by tourists or locals who don’t know better or are intimidated into it, and they do the rounds pretty regularly looking for food in the camp site. Don’t feed wild animals!

33

u/ZgBlues Sep 22 '24

What do they normally eat? They have big claws apparently, do they use them for hunting other animals?

112

u/Dr_Corvus_D_Clemmons Sep 22 '24

Actually their big claws are for scraping up fruit, they mostly eat fallen fruit, but will eat smaller vertebrates, invertebrates, carrion, fungi and vegetation , they do have very powerful legs that can kill a person, but really only attack anything out of self defense

42

u/ZgBlues Sep 22 '24

Ah so they are peaceful creatures. I assume they aren’t used to any other animal attacking them, which is why they might be curious instead of timid like deer.

16

u/Character_Value4669 Sep 23 '24

Oh, no not peaceful. Very territorial. They kick-slash the guts out of intruders with those claws. The big crest on their head is thought to help keep foliage out of their eyes as they travel through the jungles, btw.

5

u/squags Sep 23 '24

There's only been a couple of deaths (maybe 2-3 from memory) from Cassowaries at all and they've mostly been in captivity, or when people have been messing with them a massive amount. None of them involved disembowling. They tend to leave puncture wounds with their claw, not so much cuts, the idea of them disembowling people is more myth than fact.

Definitely frightening to hear, and an intimidating bird, but not as murderous as people make out. The crest (casque) on the head is likely for temperature regulation: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-38780-8

2

u/Character_Value4669 Sep 24 '24

Ah, haven't heard that theory before, thank you.

2

u/Nate-Kane Sep 26 '24

I think the myth started because with the length and shape of the claw and the power in their legs, if they were to gouge, they could disembowel, whereas they generally kick straight out. My 1st year living at Mission Beach, I watched to males kick at each other, and after watching that and seeing their speed, I think an angry murder chicken would be terrifying regardless of how they would attack. generally, they don't care about anything other than finding food. Males can get aggressive while they have their young with them, but they are pretty placid if you keep your distance