--- title: The African savanna area: giraffes, zebras, rhinos and antelopes — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The African savanna area: giraffes, zebras, rhinos and antelopes», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: At the zoo the African savanna area is one big grassy paddock where giraffes, zebras and antelopes wander --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / The African savanna area: giraffes, ze… # The African savanna area: giraffes, zebras, rhinos and antelopes Lesson 101 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/0/) — At the zoo the African savanna area is one big grassy paddock where giraffes, zebras and antelopes wander together, just as they share the plains of Africa, while the lions live next door behind a strong fence. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/1/) — Each animal has its own way of living on the savanna: the giraffe eats leaves high up where nobody else reaches, the zebra and the white rhino graze the grass, and antelopes nibble and run. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/2/) — Picture a giraffe drinking: it has to spread its front legs wide like a clumsy tripod to reach the water, and that is the moment a lion likes best, so in the wild giraffes drink only now and then. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/3/) — Cartoons such as Madagascar make the zebra and the giraffe chatty friends of a lion, but on the real savanna a lion is the animal they watch for all day, and even a giraffe's neck has only seven bones, the same as yours. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/4/) — Zoo giraffes feed from baskets and nets hung high, as wild giraffes feed from tall acacia trees, and a giraffe's neck has seven very long bones, called vertebrae, the same number as a person's neck. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/5/) — A giraffe's tongue is about 45 to 50 centimetres long and dark blue-black; it pulls leaves off thorny acacias, thick sticky spit protects it from thorns, and the dark colour may help against sunburn. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/6/) — A giraffe must spread its front legs wide to drink, because its neck cannot reach the ground with straight legs, and special valves in its neck stop blood rushing to its head when it bends. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/7/) — Zebras often rest side by side facing different ways, so many eyes watch in every direction for lions, and scientists have found that stripes seem to confuse biting flies. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/8/) — Zebra skin is dark under the hair, so scientists usually describe a zebra as black with white stripes, and every zebra has its own stripe pattern, which helps a foal know its mother. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/9/) — The white rhino has a wide, square mouth for grazing grass and the black rhino a pointed, hooked lip for picking leaves; both are grey, and «white» may come from a word meaning «wide». - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/10/) — Rhino horn is made of keratin, the same stuff as hair and fingernails; it is no medicine, but people who wrongly think it is pay poachers who kill rhinos for it. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/11/) — Poaching and war killed nearly all northern white rhinos; the last male, Sudan, died in 2018, so only two females are left, and scientists are trying to make new calves from frozen cells with southern white rhinos as mothers. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/12/) — Springboks and some gazelles leap high with stiff legs, called pronking or stotting, which seems to tell a predator «I am fit, don't bother» and warns the rest of the herd. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/13/) — Zoos can keep giraffes, zebras and antelopes in one paddock because they eat different plants and do not hunt each other, while lions are kept separately next door. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/14/) — Giraffes sleep only a few hours a day in short naps, sometimes lying down with the head curled back on the body, and in the wild they mostly rest standing up because lying down is risky. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/15/) — A baby giraffe is born by dropping about 2 metres to the ground, which is normal and safe for it, and it can stand within about an hour. - ← previous: [Sea lions, seals and otters](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/) - next →: [The African savanna area: hippos, meerkats, ostriches, wild dogs and hyenas](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/102-the-african-savanna-area-hippos-meerkats-ostriches/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)