--- title: Reef giants and wanderers: whale sharks, mantas, dugongs and sea turtles — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Reef giants and wanderers: whale sharks, mantas, dugongs and sea turtles», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Manta rays fly through the water on wings wider than a car is long and sometimes leap right out o --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/) [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/) / Reef giants and wanderers: whale shark… # Reef giants and wanderers: whale sharks, mantas, dugongs and sea turtles Lesson 174 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/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/1/) — Manta rays fly through the water on wings wider than a car is long and sometimes leap right out of the sea, while dugongs graze on sea grass like underwater cows. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/2/) — Sea turtles are the great wanderers: a baby crawls from its sand nest to the sea at night, swims thousands of kilometres for years, and many females come back to lay eggs on the very beach where they hatched. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/3/) — To a turtle, a plastic bag drifting in the water can look just like a jellyfish, which is one reason rubbish in the sea is so dangerous. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/4/) — The whale shark is the largest fish in the world, about as long as a bus; it eats tiny drifting food, and each one has a pattern of spots as unique as a fingerprint. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/5/) — Manta rays are huge rays with wings up to about seven metres across, and they have the biggest brains for their body size of any fish. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/6/) — Dugongs are sea cows that graze on sea grass, and sailors long ago may have mistaken dugongs and manatees for mermaids. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/7/) — Sea turtle babies hatch from eggs buried in sand and head for the sea, and warmer sand makes more of the babies female. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/8/) — Sea turtles travel thousands of kilometres across oceans, often riding ocean currents, and many females return to lay eggs on the beach where they hatched. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/9/) — Sea turtles sometimes eat plastic bags, mistaking them for jellyfish; leatherback turtles mostly eat jellyfish and have spines in their throats to hold them. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/10/) — Some reef sharks can rest on the sea floor and still breathe, and sharks have been around for hundreds of millions of years, longer than trees. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/11/) — The coconut crab is the largest land crab in the world, it can climb palm trees, and its pinch is one of the strongest of any animal. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/12/) — A big coconut crab is about a metre across with its legs spread, so it would still fit in your arms; like other crabs it has ten legs, counting its two big claws. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/13/) — Hammerhead sharks have wide heads with an eye at each end, and they swing their heads from side to side as they search; some gather in big schools near islands. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/14/) — Hawksbill turtles eat sponges that many other animals cannot eat, and this helps corals have more space to grow. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/174-reef-giants-and-wanderers-whale-sharks-mantas-dugongs-and-sea-turtles/15/) — Remoras stick to sharks and rays with a sucker on their heads, and that sucker is really a changed fin. - ← previous: [Coral reef partners and tricksters: clownfish, cleaners, mimics and puffers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/173-coral-reef-partners-and-tricksters-clownfish-cleaners-mimics-and-puffers/) - next →: [The twilight zone: barreleyes, lanternfish and the biggest daily journey on Earth](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/175-the-twilight-zone-barreleyes-lanternfish-and-the-biggest-daily-journey-on-earth/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)