--- title: Zoos in Australia and around the world, and the year's myths put right — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Zoos in Australia and around the world, and the year's myths put right», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Australian zoos often look after Australia's own odd and wonderful animals: Taronga in Sydney has g --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/) [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/) / Zoos in Australia and around the world… # Zoos in Australia and around the world, and the year's myths put right Lesson 117 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 17 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/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/0/) — Australian zoos often look after Australia's own odd and wonderful animals: Taronga in Sydney has giraffes with the Opera House behind them, Healesville bred the first platypus in a zoo, and Australia Zoo is the home of Steve Irwin's family and its wildlife hospital. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/1/) — Around the world zoos have their own stories: Singapore's Night Safari opens only in the dark, Berlin keeps one of the largest number of kinds of animals and had the famous polar bear Knut, Tokyo's Ueno Zoo is Japan's oldest, and in Ukraine keepers risked their lives to feed animals during the war. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/2/) — After a year of zoo visits, the notebook is full: big cats, apes, reptiles, birds, frogs and insects, keepers and vets, and a long list of cartoon «facts» that turned out to be myths. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/3/) — Elephants are not terrified of mice, lions do not chase mice for dinner, ostriches do not bury their heads, lemmings do not jump off cliffs on purpose, bats are not blind and goldfish remember for months: a good scientist checks a story before repeating it. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/4/) — Taronga Zoo in Sydney sits on a hill above the harbour; it runs a wildlife hospital and breeding programmes for Australian animals like the corroboree frog and the platypus. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/6/) — Healesville Sanctuary near Melbourne keeps only Australian animals; it bred the first platypus in captivity in 1943 and helps save the helmeted honeyeater and Leadbeater's possum. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/7/) — Werribee near Melbourne and Monarto in South Australia are huge open-range zoos where herds of giraffes, rhinos and zebras roam large areas, more like a savanna. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/8/) — The southern corroboree frog, yellow and black, almost disappeared because of chytrid fungus; zoos breed it in very clean rooms and release eggs and young frogs into the mountains, and it makes its own poison, unlike poison dart frogs, which get theirs from the ants they eat. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/9/) — A platypus has a broad flat tail, and a koala has only a tiny stump of a tail hidden in its fur. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/10/) — Singapore Zoo uses moats and plants instead of bars, and its Night Safari, opened in 1994, shows nocturnal animals in the open at night. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/11/) — Berlin Zoo, opened in 1844, has one of the largest collections of animal species in the world, and its polar bear cub Knut became world-famous in 2007. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/12/) — During the war in Ukraine some zoos were reported to be shelled; keepers stayed to feed the animals or moved them to safety, and some animals were taken to zoos in Poland and other countries. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/13/) — Ueno Zoo in Tokyo opened in 1882 and is Japan's oldest zoo; giant panda twins born there in 2021 drew huge crowds. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/14/) — Myths put right this year: elephants are not afraid of mice (though any small sudden thing may startle them), lions do not hunt mice, ostriches do not bury their heads, lemmings do not jump off cliffs on purpose, bats are not blind and goldfish remember for months. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/15/) — The lemming myth was spread by a 1958 nature film in which the film-makers themselves drove lemmings off a cliff; real lemmings sometimes drown by accident when crowds of them cross water. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/16/) — Myths spread because they make good stories and people repeat them without checking; scientists test ideas with careful watching and experiments. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/117-zoos-around-the-world-and-myths-put-right/17/) — Good zoo visitors stay on paths, do not tap the glass, do not feed the animals and read the signs, and some zoos run junior keeper days for children. - ← previous: [Famous zoos in the USA and the UK](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/116-famous-zoos-in-the-usa-and-the-uk/) - next →: [Tom and Jerry: do real cats really chase mice?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/118-tom-and-jerry-do-real-cats-chase-mice/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)