--- title: The Arctic tundra: musk oxen, arctic foxes, snowy owls and the truth about lemmings — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The Arctic tundra: musk oxen, arctic foxes, snowy owls and the truth about lemmings», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: The tundra is the flat, treeless land around the Arctic Ocean: frozen and dark for mon --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/) [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 Arctic tundra: musk oxen, arctic f… # The Arctic tundra: musk oxen, arctic foxes, snowy owls and the truth about lemmings Lesson 168 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/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/0/) — The tundra is the flat, treeless land around the Arctic Ocean: frozen and dark for months in winter, and in summer bright day and night, boggy and buzzing with mosquitoes. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/2/) — Many tundra animals change clothes with the seasons, the way you swap a summer T-shirt for a winter coat: the arctic fox and the ptarmigan turn white for the snow and brown for the summer ground. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/3/) — Old stories, a 1958 nature film and a computer game made people think lemmings jump off cliffs together on purpose; they do not, and the film's lemmings were pushed off a cliff by the people making it. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/4/) — When wolves come, musk oxen stand in a ring with the calves in the middle and their horns pointing out. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/5/) — Musk ox underwool, called qiviut, is warmer than sheep's wool, and people collect it when it falls out in spring. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/6/) — The arctic fox has a brown or grey coat in summer and a thick white coat in winter, and it sometimes follows polar bears to eat their leftovers. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/7/) — Lemmings do not jump off cliffs on purpose to die; their numbers rise and fall in cycles, and when crowded they spread out and some drown crossing water. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/8/) — The cliff story spread from a 1958 nature film in which people pushed lemmings off a cliff for the camera. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/9/) — Snowy owls hunt lemmings and can hear them moving under the snow, and they hunt by day as well as at night because Arctic summer days never get dark. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/10/) — Caribou, called reindeer in Europe, make some of the longest land migrations of any animal, and their hooves are soft in summer for wet ground and hard and sharp in winter for digging snow. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/11/) — Arctic hares can hop on their back legs like a kangaroo when they run fast, and they sometimes gather in groups of hundreds. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/12/) — Arctic plants grow low and close together out of the wind, and some arctic flowers turn to follow the sun like little dishes that warm visiting insects. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/13/) — Permafrost is ground that stays frozen all year; in summer only a thin top layer thaws into mud, and scientists have found frozen woolly mammoths and ancient seeds in it. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/14/) — In summer the tundra has huge swarms of mosquitoes, so thick that caribou run to windy hills or snow patches to escape them. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/15/) — Ptarmigans are birds that turn white in winter and brown in summer, and they dig snow caves to sleep in because snow keeps the warmth in. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/168-the-arctic-tundra-musk-oxen-arctic-foxes-and-the-truth-about-lemmings/16/) — The Arctic woolly bear caterpillar freezes solid each winter and thaws in summer, and it may take several years to become a moth because summers are so short. - ← previous: [Australia's forests and Tasmania: devils, cassowaries, lyrebirds and cube-shaped droppings](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/167-australias-forests-and-tasmania-devils-cassowaries-and-lyrebirds/) - next →: [The Arctic Ocean: walruses, bowheads, the 400-year shark and the unicorn's tooth](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/169-the-arctic-ocean-walruses-bowheads-the-400-year-shark-and-the-unicorns-tooth/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)