Early humans may have eaten late-stage fertilized eggs, known as balut, or raised the chicks for feathers and meat.Arjan Haverkamp via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 2.0
Posted on 10/12/2021 3:19:31 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The southern cassowary is an enormous, flightless bird native to the forests of New Guinea and Northern Australia...
While one should certainly be wary around a cassowary and its dagger-like claws today, a new study found that humans may have raised the territorial, aggressive birds 18,000 years ago in New Guinea...
"This behavior that we are seeing is coming thousands of years before the domestication of the chicken," says study author Kristina Douglass, a Penn State archaeologist, in a statement. "And this is not some small fowl, it is a huge, ornery, flightless bird that can eviscerate you. Most likely the dwarf variety that weighs 20 kilos (44 pounds)."
Researchers excavating two rock shelters in New Guinea found 1,000 fragments of fossilized cassowary eggshells. To get a closer look at the ancient shell pieces, the team used three-dimensional imaging, computer modeling, and studied egg morphology of modern cassowary eggs and other birds, like emus and ostriches. Using carbon dating, the eggs are estimated to be 6,000 to 18,000 years old...
Early humans may have foraged for eggs to raise the chicks for feathers and meat, or they may have harvested and ate late-stage fertilized eggs, known as balut, reports Joanna Thompson for Live Science. Balut is still eaten today as street food in some parts of Asia, per a statement.
"What we found was that a large majority of the eggshells were harvested during late stages," says Douglass in a statement. "The eggshells look very late; the pattern is not random. They were either into eating baluts, or they are hatching chicks."
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
Early humans may have eaten late-stage fertilized eggs, known as balut, or raised the chicks for feathers and meat.Arjan Haverkamp via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 2.0
“And this is not some small fowl, it is a huge, ornery, flightless bird that can eviscerate you. Most likely the dwarf variety that weighs 20 kilos (44 pounds).”
I was thinking the Dodo Bird. One of them damn near took down the plane that Fred was taking flying lessons in.
“Most likely the dwarf variety that weighs 20 kilos (44 pounds).”
I recall the sign at the entrance to the walking paths about what to do if you see a Cassowary. One of the items was “Raise your arms above your head so as to appear larger than the Cassowary.”
I looked at my buddy - “Wait, ‘appear’ larger? That means they are STILL larger!” (No - they aren’t THAT big).
Here's a couple more I may not get around to posting.
Has Left wing and Right wing and both wings are on one bird …. Reminds me of our congressional bird being all the same kind of bird
The worlds deadliest bird?
A sparrow in a tree with a machine gun.
Maybe the modern birds are so ornery because they are descended from the survivors of a Cassowary Revolution?
A net and a stone club probably worked, likely a good bit of eatin' in one of those things.
From the look of these, Fred could have been riding on the back of one for the flying lesson.
In high school I had a girlfriend with a pet chicken. It friendlier than most cats. I wonder if she could have tamed a Casowary?
A hawk with a JAGM.
Probably convinced by Harold that they were marines in an effort to free up more perching space for his flock.
Nothing more dangerous that a sheep with ideas…
Had a guy killed near Gainesville two years back on his farm.
Like raising gators, you better know what your doing, and never turn your back. https://www.jacksonville.com/news/20190415/florida-man-killed-on-his-farm-by-cassowary-he-owned
Everybody’s now heard about the bird.
Cassowaries are definitely ornery birds, and there are a few cases of them actually killing a person by slicing them open. More often they take out pets or merely wound people.
Imagine being in a jungle and a bird the size of an ostrich decides it just doesn’t like you and instead of running as ostriches are prone to do, charges out of the brush, leaps into the air, and tries to slash you with its claw.
The female can get to be about 6.5 feet tall and 130 lbs.
Fun fact... New Guinea Cannibals reported that Long Pig does not taste like pig. It tastes like cassowary.
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