--- title: Animal builders: beavers, dams and lodges — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Animal builders: beavers, dams and lodges», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A beaver is a builder with no tools at all: its teeth are the saw, its front paws are the hands, and its chest is the wheelbarro --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/) [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 builders: beavers, dams and lod… # Animal builders: beavers, dams and lodges Lesson 242 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/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/0/) — A beaver is a builder with no tools at all: its teeth are the saw, its front paws are the hands, and its chest is the wheelbarrow for mud. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/1/) — When you see a tree in the park chewed into a pencil point, a beaver has been working there, cutting wood to build a dam across a stream. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/2/) — The dam holds back the water like the plug in a bath, so the stream becomes a deep pond that does not freeze to the bottom in winter. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/3/) — In the middle of the pond the family builds a lodge of sticks and mud with an underwater door, so wolves and bears cannot get in. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/5/) — Beavers build dams of sticks, stones and mud to make a deep pond, and the biggest known beaver dam, in Canada, is about 850 metres long and shows up in satellite pictures. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/6/) — A beaver's front teeth keep growing all its life, and their orange front has iron in the enamel, which makes them harder; a beaver can cut down a thin tree in a few minutes. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/7/) — In experiments, beavers piled sticks on a loudspeaker playing the sound of running water, so the sound of a leak makes them build: much of their building is instinct, not planning. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/8/) — Beavers have no hammer or nails: they push sticks into the mud bottom, pile them up and plaster them with mud carried against their chests. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/10/) — A beaver family is the parents, this year's kits and last year's young, who help to build; young beavers leave at about two years old to make their own pond. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/11/) — A beaver slaps its flat scaly tail on the water to warn the family of danger; the tail also steers, stores fat and props the beaver up while it chews a tree. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/12/) — Beavers can stay underwater for about 15 minutes, and see-through eyelids work like swimming goggles. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/13/) — Some dams have been repaired for hundreds of years by family after family of beavers, each one fixing the dam it inherited. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/14/) — Beavers cannot control well which way a tree falls, and falling trees sometimes kill them; trees near water often lean towards the water anyway. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/15/) — Beavers were hunted to extinction in Britain about 400 years ago for their fur and are now being brought back to some rivers. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/16/) — Beaver ponds slow floods, clean water and keep streams flowing in dry seasons; in America green strips were seen along beaver streams during droughts and wildfires while the land around them burned. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/242-animal-builders-beavers-dams-and-lodges/17/) — In the Ice Age there lived a giant beaver about as big as a black bear. - ← previous: [Team players and partners: meerkats, naked mole rats, huddles, cleaners (and do lemmings jump?)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/241-team-players-and-partners-meerkats-naked-mole-rats-huddles-cleaners-and-lemmings/) - next →: [Animal builders: termite mounds, weaver birds and other nest makers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/243-animal-builders-termite-mounds-weaver-birds-and-other-nest-makers/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)