--- title: The Congo rainforest: gorillas, bonobos, okapis and forest elephants — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The Congo rainforest: gorillas, bonobos, okapis and forest elephants», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: The Congo rainforest in the middle of Africa is the second biggest rainforest on Earth, a dark green --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/) [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 Congo rainforest: gorillas, bonobo… # The Congo rainforest: gorillas, bonobos, okapis and forest elephants Lesson 159 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/159-the-congo-rainforest/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/0/) — The Congo rainforest in the middle of Africa is the second biggest rainforest on Earth, a dark green world of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and elephants that walk under the trees. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/1/) — A silverback gorilla beats his chest with cupped hands, and the popping drum sound tells rivals how big he is, often so a real fight is not needed. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/2/) — Cartoon gorillas like King Kong thump their chests with fists, roar and smash things; real gorillas are mostly calm plant-eaters, and chest-beating is a show, not an attack. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/3/) — The forest also hides strange animals: the okapi with zebra-striped legs is really a giraffe's cousin, and the pangolin, covered in scales, rolls into a ball that even a leopard cannot open. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/4/) — Male gorillas beat their chests with cupped hands to make a loud popping sound, and bigger gorillas make deeper sounds, so others can judge size by ear. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/6/) — Bonobos live only south of the Congo River and settle many quarrels by sharing, grooming and play; females stick together and are often in charge. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/7/) — Chimpanzees and bonobos split apart when the Congo River became a barrier they could not swim across, roughly one to two million years ago. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/8/) — The okapi lives only in the Congo forest and is the giraffe's closest living relative; its stripy legs break up its outline in the shadows. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/9/) — The okapi's long tongue can reach its own eyes and ears to clean them. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/10/) — African forest elephants are smaller than savanna elephants, with straighter tusks that point down, and they spread the seeds of many big trees. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/11/) — The pangolin is covered in hard overlapping scales made of keratin, like fingernails, has no teeth, and licks up ants and termites with a very long tongue. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/12/) — African grey parrots are famous copiers of sounds; wild ones copy their flock's calls, and pet ones copy words and household noises. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/13/) — A grey parrot called Alex learned to name colours, shapes and numbers in experiments with Irene Pepperberg. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/14/) — Chimpanzees strip leaves off sticks to fish for termites, young chimps learn by watching their mothers, and different chimp groups have different tool habits. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/15/) — Giant African land snails can grow shells longer than a child's hand and have thousands of tiny teeth on a ribbon called a radula. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/16/) — In the dark Congo forest leopards often hunt by day as well as at night; they hunt duikers, monkeys and even pangolins, and drag prey up trees to keep it from other hunters. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/159-the-congo-rainforest/17/) — Duikers are small forest antelopes whose name means diver in Afrikaans, because they plunge into thick bushes to escape. - ← previous: [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/) - next →: [The Congo river: tigerfish, the deepest river, lungfish and hidden birds](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/160-the-congo-river/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)