Congratulations to Phoebe McInerney from the Flinders University Palaeo Lab who had her honours work published in BMC Evolutionary Biology yesterday!
The full title is “The phylogenetic significance of the morphology of the syrinx, hyoid and larynx, of the southern cassowary, Casuarius casuarius (Aves, Palaeognathae)” and the paper was co-authored by Trevor Worthy, Mike Lee and myself.
We got to use some cool DiceCT and imaging methods to uncover the anatomy of the cassowary. The work found that the syrinx, hyoid and larynx structures (structures in the throat related to vocalisation, respiration and feeding) were more informative for inferring the phylogeny (evolutionary relationships) of this group compared to other typical morphological traits related to flightlessness and gigantism.
I was very pleased to be involved as co-supervisor of Phoebe during her Honours year. Read the original post HERE.
Dr Alice Clement 
Hi Alice, your article led me to read about cassowaries of which I knew nothing. So fascinating! Have you met them i n real life?
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I’ve never seen a wild one but have seen them in zoos – very cool birds!
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