--- title: Marty, Gloria and Melman: real zebras, hippos and giraffes — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Marty, Gloria and Melman: real zebras, hippos and giraffes», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: In Madagascar, Marty the zebra dreams of running free, Gloria the hippo floats gracefully, and Melman the giraf --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/) [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/) / Marty, Gloria and Melman: real zebras,… # Marty, Gloria and Melman: real zebras, hippos and giraffes Lesson 128 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/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/0/) — In Madagascar, Marty the zebra dreams of running free, Gloria the hippo floats gracefully, and Melman the giraffe worries about being ill, all after escaping from New York's Central Park Zoo. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/1/) — Marty asks whether he is white with black stripes or black with white stripes, and science has an answer: under the fur a zebra's skin is black, so it is black with white stripes. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/3/) — Melman's long neck has only seven bones, the same number as yours, each one just very long, and his dark tongue, longer than a school ruler, pulls leaves past sharp thorns. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/4/) — On the real savanna zebras, giraffes and wildebeest graze side by side, eating different parts of the plants and watching out for lions together. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/5/) — Under its fur a zebra's skin is black, so scientists say zebras are black with white stripes, and every zebra's pattern is unique. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/6/) — The best-supported idea is that stripes keep away biting flies; in experiments, horses in striped coats got far fewer flies landing on them. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/7/) — Stripes might also confuse a lion trying to pick out one zebra from a running herd, but this is less certain. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/8/) — Zebras have never been tamed like horses; they are jumpy, kick hard and bite, and a zebra's kick can break a lion's jaw. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/9/) — Hippos cannot really swim or float; their heavy bones make them sink, so they walk along the riverbed and push up for air about every five minutes, even in their sleep, without waking. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/10/) — A hippo's skin makes an oily red-orange liquid, sometimes called blood sweat though it is neither blood nor sweat, which works like sunscreen. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/11/) — Hippos spend the day in water and come out at night to eat grass; their long tusks are for fighting, and they are among the most dangerous large animals in Africa. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/12/) — A hippo's closest living relatives are whales and dolphins, not pigs. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/13/) — A giraffe's neck has only seven bones, like almost all mammals, and its heart weighs about 11 kilograms to push blood up to its head. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/14/) — To drink, a giraffe must splay its front legs and bend low, so it drinks quickly, and it gets much of its water from leaves. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/15/) — A giraffe's dark tongue is about 45 to 50 centimetres long and pulls leaves past the thorns of acacia trees. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/17/) — On the savanna, giraffes reach high leaves, zebras eat tough tall grass, and wildebeest eat the shorter grass left behind, and tall giraffes often spot lions first. - ← previous: [Madagascar: real lemurs, the aye-aye and the fossa](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/127-madagascar-real-lemurs/) - next →: [The penguins of Madagascar: real penguins and chimps](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/129-madagascar-real-penguins-and-chimps/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)