--- title: Koalas, wombats, Tasmanian devils and the platypus — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Koalas, wombats, Tasmanian devils and the platypus», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Most of the strange animals in this part of the zoo are marsupials, mammals whose tiny babies finish growing in a pouch --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/) [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/) / Koalas, wombats, Tasmanian devils and… # Koalas, wombats, Tasmanian devils and the platypus Lesson 104 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 14 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/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/0/) — Most of the strange animals in this part of the zoo are marsupials, mammals whose tiny babies finish growing in a pouch, and two of them, the platypus and the echidna, are even stranger: mammals that lay eggs. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/1/) — The koala looks like a teddy bear that sleeps all day, and it really does rest up to about 20 hours, because its only food, eucalyptus leaves, has little energy and poisons that take hard work to digest. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/2/) — Go into the dark nocturnal room and your eyes slowly find a bilby with huge ears sniffing about and a sugar glider sailing from branch to branch on flaps of skin, while the platypus hunts in its tank with its eyes shut. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/3/) — Taz of Looney Tunes spins like a tornado and eats everything, and cartoons call the koala a bear; a real Tasmanian devil does not spin, though it screeches and eats bones and fur, and the koala is no bear at all. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/4/) — Koalas rest or sleep up to about 20 hours a day because eucalyptus leaves give little energy and contain poisons that take a lot of work to digest; koalas are marsupials, closer to wombats than to bears. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/5/) — Out of hundreds of kinds of eucalyptus each koala eats only a few, choosing less poisonous and more watery leaves, so zoos outside Australia grow eucalyptus plantations or fly in fresh leaves. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/6/) — On hot days koalas hug tree trunks, which are cooler than the air, to lose heat, and koalas have fingerprints very like a person's. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/7/) — Wombats are strong, heavy marsupials that dig long burrows, and the mother's pouch faces backwards so soil does not get in while she digs. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/8/) — Wombats make cube-shaped droppings, shaped by stiffer and softer parts of the gut; cubes do not roll off rocks and logs, so they work as signposts, and the scientists who found this won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2019. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/9/) — Tasmanian devils are the biggest meat-eating marsupials alive; they screech and growl to sort out who eats first, and their strong jaws crunch whole carcasses, bones and fur included. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/11/) — A platypus shuts its eyes, ears and nose under water and finds shrimps and worms by feeling tiny electric signals from their muscles with its bill; males have a venomous spur on the back legs. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/12/) — The echidna has spines like a hedgehog, curls up or digs in when touched to protect its soft belly, lays eggs, and feeds its babies milk that oozes from patches of skin, because it has no nipples. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/13/) — Bilbies are small desert marsupials with huge ears that rarely need to drink; foxes and rabbits brought from Europe harmed them, so Australians sell chocolate bilbies at Easter to raise money to protect them. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/104-koalas-wombats-tasmanian-devils-and-the-platypus/14/) — A sugar glider has a skin flap between its front and back legs and glides from tree to tree; it looks like a flying squirrel but is a marsupial that evolved the same trick separately. - ← previous: [The Australian walkabout: kangaroos, emus, wallabies and dingoes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/103-the-australian-walkabout-kangaroos-emus-wallabies-dingoes/) - next →: [The polar zone: polar bears](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/105-the-polar-zone-polar-bears/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)