--- title: The Amazon forest floor: leafcutters, army ants, tapirs, jaguars and the giant spider — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The Amazon forest floor: leafcutters, army ants, tapirs, jaguars and the giant spider», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Under the canopy the forest floor is dim, hot and damp, and so busy that a fallen tr --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/) [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 Amazon forest floor: leafcutters,… # The Amazon forest floor: leafcutters, army ants, tapirs, jaguars and the giant spider Lesson 157 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/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/0/) — Under the canopy the forest floor is dim, hot and damp, and so busy that a fallen tree can vanish in a few years as fungi, termites and bacteria eat it. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/1/) — A line of leafcutter ants marches past holding green leaf pieces like little sails, but they do not eat the leaves: they feed them to a fungus garden underground, and the fungus is their food. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/2/) — A tapir slips into a stream to escape, a jaguar cracks a turtle shell with one bite, and a Goliath birdeater spider as wide as a dinner plate eats a big insect on a leaf. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/3/) — In cartoons cats hate water, like Tom shaking his wet fur; the jaguar loves rivers and swims to catch caimans, a kind of crocodile, and fish. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/4/) — Leafcutter ants cut and carry leaves but do not eat them; they grow a fungus on chewed leaf paste and eat the fungus. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/5/) — A big leafcutter nest can hold millions of ants, and they have farmed fungus for millions of years, long before people farmed. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/6/) — Army ants raid in a moving carpet of hundreds of thousands, and antbirds follow to catch the insects fleeing in front, not to eat the ants. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/7/) — Army ants have no fixed nest and build a living nest of their own linked bodies each night. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/8/) — The bullet ant has one of the most painful insect stings known, and the pain can last for many hours. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/9/) — Tapirs are big plant-eaters with a short flexible snout like a little trunk, and they hide in water from jaguars; they are closer relatives of horses and rhinos than of pigs. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/10/) — The jaguar has the strongest bite for its size of any big cat and can crack turtle shells and caiman skulls. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/11/) — The Goliath birdeater is the heaviest spider in the world, with a leg span like a dinner plate, and mostly eats insects, worms and frogs, only rarely a bird. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/12/) — Glass frogs have see-through bellies that show their insides, even the heart beating, and while asleep they hide most of their red blood in their liver to be even harder to see. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/13/) — On the hot wet forest floor dead wood and leaves rot very fast, and most of the forest's goodness is held in living plants, not the thin soil. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/14/) — Buttress roots spread out like walls around many rainforest trees and hold the tall tree up in thin soil. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/15/) — Agoutis open hard Brazil nut pods and bury spare seeds, and the forgotten seeds grow into new Brazil nut trees. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/157-the-amazon-forest-floor/16/) — Common vampire bats walk on the ground, make a tiny cut and lap a little blood, and their saliva stops the blood from clotting. - ← previous: [The Amazon canopy: howlers, harpy eagles, toucans, dart frogs and sloth gardens](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/156-the-amazon-canopy/) - next →: [Amazon giants and tall tales: anacondas, caimans, electric eels and the candiru](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/158-amazon-giants-and-tall-tales/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)