What is the largest animal in the rainforest?
Asked by Ray, Arizona, USA By Taylor Farnum The largest animal in the rainforest is actually a bird called the cassowary. A full-grown cassowary can be 1.5 2 m tall and is not able to fly. The cassowary has a black body and bright blue neck with red wattles (pieces of loose skin that hang off its neck). The cassowary has a round horn on its head that is actually called a casque. The casque is used to help the cassowary move through the thick vines found in the rainforest. If you look back at the Week 8 Photo Gallery in sitesALIVE!, there is a picture of a cassowary that we saw on our trip to Mission Beach. The cassowary is a very important part of the rainforest because it eats large fruits found on the rainforest trees. The fruits contain the plants seeds, which the cassowary spreads around so that the fruit trees are able to grow all over the rainforest. The cassowary is endangered because it needs a lot of space to find enough fruit, and unfortunately much of its natural habitat has
