Casuariidae Casuariidae The bird family Casuariidae has four surviving members: the three species of cassowary and the emu. All living members of the family are very large flightless birds native to Australia-New Guinea, though the extinct potential member "Hypselornis" was native to India. The characteristics of the family are those of its members. The fossil record of casuariforms is interesting, but not very extensive. Some Australian fossils initially believed to be from emus were recognized to represent a distinct genus, "Emuarius", which had a cassowary-like skull and femur and an emu-like lower leg and foot. A Pliocene Indian ratite, "Hypselornis", has
Tasmanian emu to grassland and shrubland to aid in claiming land for agriculture deprived the birds of habitat. It is known that in 1838, two skin specimens were received by the British Museum. In 2018 the Austrian Natural History Museum in Weina displayed a taxidermed Tasmanian Emu. The subspecies became extinct around 1850, but this date is not very precise: Mainland birds were introduced after "diemenensis"' disappearance (and possibly even when the last birds of the Tasmanian subspecies were still around, hybridizing them out of existence), but the history of emu introductions on Tasmania is not sufficiently documented to allow a more