--- title: Madagascar: lemurs of every kind and the fossa — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Madagascar: lemurs of every kind and the fossa», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Madagascar is a big island off the coast of Africa that broke away from other land so long ago that its animals went their --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/) [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/) / Madagascar: lemurs of every kind and t… # Madagascar: lemurs of every kind and the fossa Lesson 163 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 15 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/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/0/) — Madagascar is a big island off the coast of Africa that broke away from other land so long ago that its animals went their own way, and nearly all of them live nowhere else. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/1/) — Lemurs are primates, cousins of monkeys and apes, and with no monkeys on the island to compete they spread into about a hundred kinds, from one smaller than a hamster to the singing indri. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/2/) — Picture a cold morning when you stand by a sunny window to warm up: ring-tailed lemurs do just that, sitting with arms spread wide like little sun worshippers. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/3/) — In the cartoon Madagascar a lemur king throws parties and a fossa pack is a gang of villains; the real lemurs are led by females, and the real fossa is a lone hunter related to mongooses. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/4/) — Ring-tailed lemurs sit facing the sun with arms spread to warm up after cold nights. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/5/) — Male ring-tailed lemurs have stink fights, wiping scent onto their tails and waving them at rivals. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/6/) — In ring-tailed lemurs and many other lemurs, females lead the group and get the best food, which is unusual among mammals. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/7/) — Sifakas are leaping lemurs that hop sideways on two legs across open ground and can leap about ten metres from tree to tree. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/9/) — Madame Berthe's mouse lemur is the smallest primate in the world, about thirty grams, and fat-tailed dwarf lemurs store fat in their tails to sleep through the dry season. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/10/) — The fossa is Madagascar's biggest meat-eater, shaped like a slim cat but related to mongooses, and lemurs give special alarm calls for it. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/11/) — Lemurs live wild only on Madagascar and a few nearby islands; about a hundred kinds are known, and many are in danger. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/12/) — Until about one or two thousand years ago Madagascar had giant lemurs as big as gorillas, and elephant birds, the heaviest birds ever, with eggs bigger than a rugby ball. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/13/) — The indri is the biggest living lemur and sings loud songs in family groups; scientists found rhythms in indri songs a little like music. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/14/) — The blue-eyed black lemur is one of the few primates other than humans with blue eyes, and it lives only in a small area of northwest Madagascar. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/163-madagascar-lemurs-of-every-kind-and-the-fossa/15/) — Golden bamboo lemurs eat young bamboo that contains cyanide, a poison; their bodies cope with a poison that would harm other animals, and eating a food no one else can eat means less competition. - ← previous: [Sumatra: the smallest tiger, the hairy rhino, the stinking giant flower and the venomous loris](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/162-sumatra-tigers-hairy-rhinos-and-the-venomous-loris/) - next →: [Madagascar: chameleons, leaf-tailed geckos, tenrecs, baobabs and a moth Darwin predicted](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/164-madagascar-chameleons-geckos-tenrecs-baobabs-and-darwins-moth/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)