--- title: Animal minds: elephants' memory, feelings and the mouse myth — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Animal minds: elephants' memory, feelings and the mouse myth», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: «An elephant never forgets» is an old saying, and like many old sayings it is partly true: elephants have exc --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/) [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/) / Animal minds: elephants' memory, feeli… # Animal minds: elephants' memory, feelings and the mouse myth Lesson 236 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/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/0/) — «An elephant never forgets» is an old saying, and like many old sayings it is partly true: elephants have excellent memories, though not perfect ones. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/1/) — An elephant family is led by its oldest female, the matriarch, who remembers water holes, paths and dangers over decades. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/2/) — Elephants also seem to have strong feelings: they comfort a frightened calf and stop at the bones of a dead elephant, touching them gently. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/3/) — Think of the cartoon where a huge elephant jumps on a chair, screaming at a tiny mouse: it is funny, but there is no good evidence that real elephants fear mice. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/4/) — Elephants often touch the bones of dead elephants gently with trunks and feet and pay much less attention to bones of other animals; scientists think they may feel something like grief. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/5/) — In a drought in Tanzania, herds with older matriarchs who remembered an earlier drought survived better. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/6/) — There is no good evidence that elephants fear mice; like us, they may be startled by any small thing moving suddenly near their feet. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/7/) — Elephants in Kenya can tell the voices of Maasai men, who sometimes hunt them, from the voices of women and boys, and they fear only the men's voices. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/8/) — Elephants can hold a paintbrush in their trunk, but painting elephants are trained and often guided by keepers, and many experts think the shows are for tourists. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/9/) — An elephant's trunk has tens of thousands of muscle bundles and can hold things as delicately as fingers. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/10/) — Elephants use branches to swat flies and scratch, and a zoo elephant pushed a box under a branch and stood on it to reach fruit. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/11/) — Elephants comfort a scared elephant by touching it with their trunks and making soft chirping sounds. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/12/) — An Asian elephant called Happy touched a mark on her head that she could only see in a big mirror, but some elephants do not pass the test. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/13/) — Elephant families walk behind the matriarch along old paths that lead to water, salt licks and fruit trees. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/14/) — African elephants run from the buzz of angry bees, which sting the trunk and around the eyes, so Kenyan farmers hang beehives on fences to protect crops. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/15/) — An elephant brain weighs about 5 kilograms, the largest of any land animal, but a big body needs a big brain, so size alone does not show cleverness. - ← previous: [Animal minds: dolphins' names, orca grandmothers and whale songs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/) - next →: [Animal minds: what dogs and cats feel and understand (and do cats really chase mice?)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/237-animal-minds-what-dogs-and-cats-feel-and-understand-and-do-cats-really-chase-mice/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)