--- title: Defences: venom in snakes, jellyfish, scorpions and the platypus — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Defences: venom in snakes, jellyfish, scorpions and the platypus», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Venom is a poison that an animal pushes into another animal with fangs, a sting or a spine, like a tiny s --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/) [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/) / Defences: venom in snakes, jellyfish,… # Defences: venom in snakes, jellyfish, scorpions and the platypus Lesson 246 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 18 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/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/0/) — Venom is a poison that an animal pushes into another animal with fangs, a sting or a spine, like a tiny syringe. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/1/) — There is an easy rule: if it bites you and you get hurt, it is venomous; if you bite it and you get hurt, it is poisonous. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/2/) — Venom is mostly for catching food fast, and for defence: a slow cone snail must stop a fast fish at once, and a box jellyfish must stop a fish before it tears its delicate tentacles. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/3/) — Many venomous animals warn before they strike, the way a cobra spreads its hood, because a fight is risky and venom is costly to make. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/4/) — So if you meet a snake on a path, the best thing is the simplest: stay calm, back away slowly and let it go. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/5/) — Venom is injected by a bite, a sting or a spine, while a poison is in the body and harms you if you eat or touch it; a few animals, like the slow loris, are both. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/6/) — Venomous snakes use venom mainly to catch and kill prey and to defend themselves, and only about one in seven kinds of snake is dangerous to people. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/7/) — Box jellyfish have tentacles covered in tiny stinging cells that fire like harpoons, and lifeguards in Australia pour vinegar on the stings to stop the unfired cells. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/8/) — A cobra spreads its hood by stretching long ribs in its neck as a warning, and some cobras spit venom at an attacker's eyes from about two metres away. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/9/) — Male platypuses have venom spurs on their back legs for fights with other males; the venom can cause terrible pain for weeks but has never been known to kill a person, and the platypus is one of very few venomous mammals. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/10/) — Cone snails shoot a harpoon-like tooth full of venom into fish, and pain medicines have been made from cone snail venom. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/11/) — A scorpion has eight legs, like its cousin the spider, plus two big claws at the front and a sting on its tail. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/12/) — Scorpions glow blue-green under ultraviolet light, nobody is quite sure why, and only a few of the many kinds are dangerous to people. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/13/) — A tarantula bite is usually no worse than a bee sting to a person, and many American tarantulas defend themselves by flicking tiny itchy hairs from their bottoms. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/14/) — Antivenom is made by giving horses small doses of venom and collecting the antibodies their bodies make; snakebites still kill tens of thousands of people a year, mostly farmers in poor countries. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/15/) — Komodo dragons, the biggest lizards alive at up to 3 metres, have venom glands in their jaws; people long thought they killed with germs in dirty spit, until venom was reported in 2009. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/16/) — Snakes cannot hypnotise: they have no eyelids, so they seem to stare, and a charmer's cobra follows the moving pipe, not the music, because snakes hear sounds in the air poorly and feel vibrations through their jaws. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/246-defences-venom-in-snakes-jellyfish-scorpions-and-the-platypus/18/) — In Britain the only venomous snake is the adder, and bites are rare. - ← previous: [More builders: caddis cases, paper wasps, moles, apes' beds and sand circles](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/245-more-builders-caddis-cases-paper-wasps-moles-apes-beds-and-sand-circles/) - next →: [Defences: poison, warning colours and mimics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/247-defences-poison-warning-colours-and-mimics/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)