Gummi Fridriksson is passionate about all things PNG and enjoys sharing his vast knowledge, and local insights, through his blogs.
With its’ uniquely striking blue and purple head and neck, red wattles and amber eyes— the Southern Cassowary has become an icon of the wet tropics in Papua New Guinea. Although also native to the tropical rainforests of north-east Queensland and some surrounding islands— the name ‘Cassowary’ finds its’ roots in PNG language— having originated from the word “kasu” meaning horned and “weri” meaning head.
Often called the dinosaur bird, the large flightless bird is a ratite (one in a group of diverse large, flightless birds of the infraclass Palaeognathae) and in evolutionary terms is a descendant of some of the earliest types of birds. Papua New Guinean’s know these forest foragers as ‘Muruks’.
