Re: Cassowary attack videos

[Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>]

The most impressive cassowary behaviour I've seen on film concerned a
very young juvenile who was being hand raised. Every day it was taken
for a walk by it's keeper down to a nearbye pond, where it promptly set
upon any ducks it found there to practice it's kick attacks. It would
run and leap at the ducks with successive flying double-kicks like
something you'd expect to see in a Kung Fu movie. The ducks appeared to
escape relatively unscathed though (shaken, but apparently unstirred). I
suspect that this behaviour is probably something chicks do to each
other in a normal cassowary brood, much like juveniles of any species
will play-fight amongst themselves.

It goes to show that cassowary kick attacks are encoded on an
instinctual level, since I believe the chick was hatched in an incubator
(thus had no way of ever observing another cassowary exhibiting the
behaviour).

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Dann Pigdon
GIS / Archaeologist         http://www.geocities.com/dannsdinosaurs
Melbourne, Australia        http://heretichides.soffiles.com
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