In the wilds of Australia and New Guinea, there is a dinosaur-like bird that probably wants to hurt you. It’s probably thinking about it right now, in fact. To be fair, it’s only because it assumes you want to tangle with it — which you totally don’t. But in the name of conservation, some are willing to. Photographer Christian Ziegler risked life and limb to photograph the Southern cassowary in Black Mountain Road, Australia. Before it cait won him the top award in the 2013 World Press Photo of the Year.
Based in the Netherlands, World Press Photo is one of the world’s most prestigious annual photo contests. 2013 saw 103,481 submissions, and Ziegler — a regular photographer for National Geographic — won the first prize “single image” category for Nature, which makes being attacked repeatedly by this velociraptor-in-bird’s-clothing seem like a small price to pay.
See, the cassowary has the reputation of being the most dangerous bird in the world, not because of its prodigious, eviscerating talons, nor even its great strength as a large, flightless bird. It’s the sheer aggression and territorialism of the cassowary that makes it so deadly — not unlike the Brazilian wandering spider (which also wants to hurt you). This blue-feathered bird regularly hospitalizes people, and there have been some fatalities, too.
via Geekosystem
