Diet of the Dwarf Cassowary Casuarius Bennetti Picticollis at Wau, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

PRATT, T.K. 1983. Diet of the Dwarf Cassowary Casuarius bennetti picticollis at Wau, Papua New Guinea. Emu 82: 283–285. This paper describes the diet of the Dwarf Cassowary in a lower montane forest at Wau in Papua New Guinea. The forty-three droppings examined contained mostly fruit, of at least thirty-four species. Dwarf Cassowaries eat relatively large fruit, a diet more similar to flying foxes than to other birds. Droppings contained an average of 3.6 species of fruits indicating that Dwarf Cassowaries exploit a variety of food trees at any one time.