Are Cassowaries Dinosaurs?
If you thought this was some kind of dinosaur foot, you’re not alone! The picture is actually of a cassowary foot and was taken in 2019. It shows the distinctive 5 inch claw that grows on cassowary feet and their scaly legs which look similar to most representations of dinosaurs.
The closest relative of dinosaurs are birds. Both dinosaurs and birds have extremely lightweight bones. In the case of dinosaurs this helped them becomes extremely large, in the case of birds it helped them fly.
Flightless birds ranging from the elephant bird to the rhea.
While all birds are technically all decedents from dinosaurs, the cassowary is thought to be as similar to ancients as it gets. They are large bodies with large, fierce claws. Although flightless, these birds have huge helmet-like structures on their heads which many ancient species of dinosaurs are thought to have had.
Cassowaries are one of only about 60 flightless bird species. Even more rare is their size. While massive flightless birds like the elephant bird (which weighed up to 1,600 pounds) and moa (which weighed up to 550 pounds) recently roamed the earth, today very few remain.
In addition to the cassowary, flightless birds like ostriches, emus, and rheas can reach over 100 pounds.
Recent Dinosaur Discovery Looks Like a Cassowary
An artisit’s rendering of the Corythoraptor jacobsi
Look at the image above and tell us what looks unique about this picture of cassowaries.
If you answered, “that’s not a picture of cassowaries,” you’re absolutely correct!
The above picture is taken from recently published scientific research on a new dinosaur species named Corythoraptor jacobsi. This artwork demonstrates how closely the species resembles modern cassowaries.
A picture of a cassowary for comparison
Even more striking is the side by side comparison of the Corythoraptor‘s skeleton vs. a modern day cassowary skeleton.
On the image below images A and B show analysis of the newly discovered dinosaur’s skull. Picture C shows an artist’s rendering of what the dinosaur’s head would have looked like.
Compare this to image F, which shows a modern cassowary skull. It’s remarkably similar! The bottom 3 images compare the crest on the top of a cassowary’s skull to the crest on the extinct dinosaur. It shows that the materials are extremely similar!
Ancient relatives of cassowaries are believed to have first evolved shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs, about 60 million years ago. So while cassowaries are not directly related to this dinosaur, the discovery does shed light on how similar they are to some long lost dinosaur species!
