Cassowary

Cassowaries are tall flightless birds with big horny crests on their face. They are shy birds which prefer to hide away from humanoids, but can deal quiet the punch when forced to fight. Cassowaries are commonly hunted for sport but have also been domesticated as poultry. However they are too aggressive to be used as a mount, which stands in sharp contrast with their more intimidatingly sounding cousins the Terror Bird and Demon-Duck of Doom. They eat mostly fallen fruits, which they eat by swallowing them whole. Some of these fruits holds seeds of 5 centimetres or larger. For these plants the cassowary is an important distributor of seeds, as they simply poop the enormous seeds out again with no issue.

Description
Adult cassowaries are between 150 to 200 centimetres tall and weight up to 60 kilograms. Unlike with most birds, the female cassowary is both larger and more brightly coloured than their male counterparts. The feet of a cassowary has three toes, with a sharp large dagger-like claw on the second digit which reaches 125 millimetres. A horny crest of up to 18 centimetres can be found on top of its face which grows as they become older. This crests helps them to produce their deep calls, which sound more like the growling of a dog than a normal bird call. Their feathers are very soft and loose except for those on the wings, which are stiff and quill like.

Cassowaries can run at a speed of 50 kilometres a hour. During their runs they use their crests to brush aside any vegetation that could hinder them. They can jump up to their own body height. They are well adapted to swim and have even be found swimming near the coast. Cassowaries can life between 40 to 50 years. They live in groups of between 30 to 50 individuals called a shock. Tales tell of rural villages getting ravaged by shocks of feral cassowaries digging up gardens and eating children. Farmers in these rural areas always keep a loaded repeating crossbow on hand, just so they can deal with these feral cassowaries.