--- title: More animal myths: red rags, camel humps, porcupine arrows, toads and falling cats — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «More animal myths: red rags, camel humps, porcupine arrows, toads and falling cats», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Cartoons love animal tricks: a bull goes mad at a red cape, a camel unscrews its hump a --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/) [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/) / More animal myths: red rags, camel hum… # More animal myths: red rags, camel humps, porcupine arrows, toads and falling cats Lesson 154 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 18 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/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/0/) — Cartoons love animal tricks: a bull goes mad at a red cape, a camel unscrews its hump and pours out water, a porcupine fires quills like arrows, and Tom the cat falls off the roof and always lands neatly on his feet. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/1/) — Each of these has a grain of truth wrapped in a mistake: the bull really charges, the camel's hump really helps in the desert, quills really hurt, and cats really twist in the air. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/2/) — The trick is to ask what the animal really sees, stores or does: a bull sees red poorly and charges at the moving cape, and a camel's hump is fat, not a water tank. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/3/) — Playground myths work the same way: touching a toad does not give you warts, a bird will not abandon a chick you touched, and cutting a worm in half does not make two worms. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/4/) — Bulls are not angered by red; cattle see red poorly and charge at the cape because it moves, and in tests they charged moving capes of any colour. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/5/) — A camel's hump stores fat, not water; when food is short the camel uses the fat and the hump goes floppy. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/6/) — A thirsty camel can drink over 100 litres of water in about ten minutes, and its body loses very little water. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/7/) — Porcupines cannot shoot their quills; the barbed quills come out easily when touched and stick into the attacker. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/8/) — A North American porcupine has about 30,000 quills, and it rattles them and stamps as a warning first. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/9/) — Toads do not give people warts; warts are caused by a virus passed between people, but some toads have poison glands, so wash your hands after touching one. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/10/) — Most birds have a poor sense of smell and will not abandon a chick because a person touched it; a feathered chick hopping on the ground is often a fledgling with its parents nearby. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/11/) — Cutting an earthworm in half does not make two worms; sometimes the front part survives and regrows a tail, but the back part usually dies. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/12/) — Cats twist in the air with a righting reflex to land on their feet, but they can still be badly hurt in falls, so high open windows are a danger to them. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/13/) — Owls are good hunters but not cleverer than other birds; an owl's big face is mostly eyes and ears for hunting, and crows, ravens and parrots do much better in puzzle tests. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/14/) — The wise owl idea comes from ancient Greece, where the owl was the bird of Athena, the goddess of wisdom. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/15/) — Only honeybee workers usually die after stinging a person, because their barbed sting stays stuck; bumblebees and wasps can sting again and again. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/16/) — Hedgehogs should not be given milk, which can make them ill; leave out water and meaty cat or dog food instead. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/154-more-animal-myths-from-cartoons/17/) — Chameleons change colour mainly to show mood, warm up or cool down and send signals, not mostly to match what they sit on, and they could never copy a tartan pattern. - ← previous: [Myth check: are bats blind?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/153-are-bats-blind/) - next →: [The Amazon river: pink dolphins, flooded forest, giant fish and piranhas](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/155-the-amazon-river/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)