--- title: Silkworms and goldfish: two animals China changed — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Silkworms and goldfish: two animals China changed», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: In a school box, small white caterpillars munch mulberry leaves so loudly that the tray sounds like soft rain. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/) [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/) / Silkworms and goldfish: two animals Ch… # Silkworms and goldfish: two animals China changed Lesson 381 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 20 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/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/0/) — In a school box, small white caterpillars munch mulberry leaves so loudly that the tray sounds like soft rain. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/1/) — They are silkworms, and people in China have kept them for thousands of years. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/2/) — Farmers always chose the calmest worms that made the best silk, generation after generation, until the silk moth could no longer live without people: it cannot fly properly and is not found anywhere in the wild. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/3/) — Goldfish have a similar story. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/4/) — Long ago people in China noticed rare golden fish among dull grey-green wild carp, kept the brightest in ponds and let them have babies, until the colours grew strong. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/5/) — Later breeders chose odd shapes too, such as bubble eyes and double tails. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/6/) — These shapes help no fish in the wild; they exist only because people like how they look. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/7/) — Changing an animal by choosing which ones have babies is called breeding, and it shows how much living things can change over many generations. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/8/) — Silkworms are the caterpillars of the domestic silk moth, and they eat almost nothing but fresh mulberry leaves. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/9/) — The domestic silk moth cannot fly properly and no longer lives in the wild; it depends on people completely. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/10/) — A silkworm has six true legs at the front and ten soft prolegs with tiny hooks further back; the moth keeps only the six true legs. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/11/) — A silkworm grows thousands of times heavier in about a month and sheds its skin four times, because old skin cannot stretch. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/12/) — A silkworm spins a cocoon from one single thread of liquid silk over two or three days, and the thread can be longer than five football pitches. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/13/) — The story of an empress whose tea cup caught a cocoon is a legend, but traces of silk in old Chinese graves are reported to be about 8,500 years old. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/14/) — For a long time making silk was a secret, and carrying silkworm eggs out of China was forbidden. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/15/) — Silk is made of protein, like hair, and its smooth fibres shine and feel soft; to get the long thread most cocoons are heated, so the pupa inside dies. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/16/) — Goldfish come from a wild carp of East Asia, and people in China kept rare golden ones more than a thousand years ago. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/17/) — Fancy goldfish with bubble eyes, puffy heads or double tails were bred by people, and some swim slowly or see badly. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/18/) — A wild goldfish has one tail fin; a fantail has a doubled tail, two tail fins side by side joined at the front. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/19/) — Goldfish dumped in lakes can grow as big as a football, eat other fishes' eggs, stir up mud and crowd out native fish, and over generations they often turn dull again, partly because birds spot and catch the bright ones first. - ← previous: [China's plants: bamboo, ginkgo, lotus, tea and rice paddies](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/) - next →: [The Chinese zodiac: the twelve real animals behind the signs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/382-the-chinese-zodiac-the-twelve-real-animals-behind-the-signs/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)