--- title: Deserts of the world: fennec foxes, fog-drinking beetles, camels and silver ants — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Deserts of the world: fennec foxes, fog-drinking beetles, camels and silver ants», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A desert is a place where very little rain falls, so the hardest problem for every living --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/) [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/) / Deserts of the world: fennec foxes, fo… # Deserts of the world: fennec foxes, fog-drinking beetles, camels and silver ants Lesson 182 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/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/0/) — A desert is a place where very little rain falls, so the hardest problem for every living thing there is water, and in hot deserts the second problem is heat. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/1/) — Desert animals solve it in clever ways: some drink fog, some get all their water from food, some hide in burrows by day and come out at night. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/2/) — Think of the hot sand on a beach in August that burns your feet: a sidewinder snake lifts most of its body off the sand, and silver ants run on long legs so their bodies stay above the hottest layer. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/3/) — Desert plants save water too: a cactus stores it in a fat stem and swells after rain, like a sponge you fill and then squeeze slowly for months. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/5/) — Fennec foxes can go a long time without drinking, because they get water from their food. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/6/) — The fog-basking beetle of the Namib Desert stands head-down on a dune at dawn; fog forms droplets on its bumpy back that roll down to its mouth, and engineers have copied its back to collect water from fog. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/7/) — The sidewinder snake moves sideways and touches the hot sand at only two points, leaving J-shaped tracks. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/8/) — Camels can go many days without drinking; their humps store fat, not water, and a thirsty camel can drink over a hundred litres in about ten minutes. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/9/) — Saharan silver ants come out at the hottest time of day to find animals killed by the heat, while the lizards that hunt them hide from it; silver hairs reflect sunlight, and they can run nearly a metre a second. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/10/) — Welwitschia, a plant of the Namib Desert, has only two leaves its whole life; they keep growing from the base and the wind tears them into strips, and some plants may be over a thousand years old. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/12/) — Horned lizards can squirt blood from their eyes at dogs, foxes and coyotes; the blood tastes bad to them, but the lizards do not do it to birds. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/13/) — A cactus stores water in its stem and swells after rain; its spines are changed leaves that shade it and stop animals eating it, and a big saguaro can hold over a thousand litres. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/14/) — The Gila monster is a venomous lizard that stores fat in its thick tail and eats big meals only a few times a year; a medicine for diabetes was made from a chemical in its saliva. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/15/) — A real roadrunner can run about thirty kilometres an hour, but a coyote can run about twice as fast. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/182-deserts-of-the-world-fennec-foxes-fog-drinking-beetles-camels-and-silver-ants/16/) — Male sandgrouse soak their belly feathers at a waterhole and fly many kilometres back to their chicks, which drink from the wet feathers. - ← previous: [Strange islands: Komodo dragons, the dodo, red crabs, kakapos, giants and dwarfs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/181-strange-islands-komodo-dragons-the-dodo-red-crabs-kakapos-giants-and-dwarfs/) - next →: [Mountains of the world: snow leopards, high-flying geese, condors and Everest spiders](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/183-mountains-of-the-world-snow-leopards-high-flying-geese-condors-and-everest-spiders/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)