--- title: Who eats whom: predators, prey, scavengers and decomposers — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Who eats whom: predators, prey, scavengers and decomposers», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A predator hunts and kills other animals for food, its prey; scavengers eat animals that are already dead, and --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/) [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/) / Who eats whom: predators, prey, scaven… # Who eats whom: predators, prey, scavengers and decomposers Lesson 47 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 14 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/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/0/) — A predator hunts and kills other animals for food, its prey; scavengers eat animals that are already dead, and decomposers such as fungi, worms and dung beetles break down dead things and dung so the goodness goes back to the soil. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/1/) — When your well-fed pet cat drops a mouse on the kitchen floor, it is not hungry and not giving you a present on purpose: the urge to stalk and pounce is built into every cat. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/4/) — Cats are predators: even well-fed pet cats hunt mice, birds and insects, and pet cats in Britain have been estimated to catch tens of millions of animals a year. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/5/) — A kestrel hovers into the wind with its head perfectly still, which keeps the picture steady, to spot the tiny movements of voles and mice in the grass; a 1995 study suggested it may see ultraviolet light from voles' urine trails. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/6/) — Prey such as rabbits and deer have eyes on the sides of the head to see almost all the way round; predators such as foxes, owls and cats have eyes facing forward to judge distance before a pounce. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/7/) — The best-supported idea about zebra stripes today is that they put off biting flies such as horseflies, which fail to land properly on stripes; the idea that they confuse lions has little proof. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/8/) — Vultures are scavengers whose very strong stomach acid kills most germs from rotting meat; when vultures nearly died out in India after eating cattle treated with a medicine poisonous to them, carcasses lay uncleaned and disease spread. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/9/) — It is a myth that hyenas only steal from lions: spotted hyenas hunt most of their own food in many places, lions often steal from them, and they are closer relatives of cats and mongooses than of dogs. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/10/) — Dung beetles roll dung into balls and bury them as food for their young; some steer at night by the glow of the Milky Way, and Australia brought in dung beetles to clear up cow pats, which had piled up in the fields and bred flies. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/11/) — Earthworms pull dead leaves underground and turn them into rich worm casts, and their tunnels let air and water into the soil; Charles Darwin wrote a whole book about them in 1881. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/12/) — Fungi are decomposers whose thin threads break down dead wood, and mushrooms are only their fruiting bodies; many wild mushrooms are deadly, so never touch or eat one you cannot name. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/13/) — A hoverfly has wasp-like yellow and black stripes but cannot sting; copying a dangerous animal's look to fool predators is called mimicry. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/14/) — A Virginia opossum chased by a predator may fall over, go stiff, drool and smell bad for minutes or hours, because many predators lose interest in prey that seems dead. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/15/) — A Venus flytrap is a plant predator that snaps its leaves shut on insects; it grows in poor soil and gets extra food from insects; its trigger hairs must be touched twice within about 20 seconds, so a raindrop or a speck of dust does not set it off, and it grows wild only in a small area of North and South Carolina. - ← previous: [Food chains: sun, plants, plant-eaters, meat-eaters](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/46-food-chains/) - next →: [Life cycles and metamorphosis: frog, butterfly, ladybird](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/48-life-cycles-metamorphosis/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)