Southern Cassowary - Casuarius casuarius

The Southern Cassowary is a kitchen knife with a bird attached to it.

Of all the second largest birds in Australia, the Southern Cassowary is the most second large. The less flattering title that it claims, it owes to its well-muscled, densely-boned, poorly-self controlled physique: the notoriously anal title of Australia's 'heaviest' bird, as opposed to simply its largest.

The cassowary is a frugivore, meaning it doesn't just eat fruit, it also digests it and craps it out. When an animal is only putting a specific kind of material in its mouth without actually doing everything that happens involuntarily after swallowing, that doesn't mean that material is what the animal eats. It just means the animal's weird. Cassowaries don't just go about holding fruit in their mouths, they also eat it. So tell your friends they can stop spreading rumours. This consumption, and indeed, excretion (important to note!) of fruit, and (important to note!) it's seeds, is important to note as a major contributor to seed dispersal in the tropical rainforests of Far North Queensland. As I think it's an unsustainable trend, I'm going to put an end to writing '(important to note!)' after every important point, and I'll leave you to just suss it out for yourselves (important to note!). In keeping with their high social status in faecal seed dispersing circles, the cassowary relies on a year-round supply of precisely timed ripenings, providing a constant presentation of fleshy fruits, in order to feed adequately. For this reason deforestation and loss of fruiting trees threatens the velocir -- sorry, pardon, the cassowary. The velociraptor is extinct.

The Southern Cassowary is widely considered the most dangerous bird in the world. Its aggression in defending its chicks, its size and strength, not to mention its meat-cleaver of an inner claw (not pictured, I wasn't game), means that it is fully capable of shanking and murdering an adult human being. Not legally capable of murdering, mind you, unless you're from PETA (you better not get all double-standard on me, now). So I'll leave you with this image from the Daintree Rainforest in Far North Queensland, where I was greeted by a breeding pair of cassowaries with their two chicks, just metres from my tent. A good morning.