Wild diet: Frigvorous, main food species Myrtaceae and Lauraceae, will occasionally eat fungi, small vertebrates, snails and insects. The Southern Cassowary is reported to eat over 75 species of fruit and to occasionally eat carrion. In captivity they consume almost 3kg of food. Up to 97 species of plant detected in the faeces of Dwarf Cassowaries.

Feeding strategy: Southern Cassowary – food usually picked up from forest floor. Have been recorded as predating domestic fowl and tern eggs in Australia.

Wild weight ranges: Southern Cassowary: males 29-34kg, females 58kg Dwarf Cassowary: 17.6kg Northern Cassowary: not recorded