--- title: How animals hunt — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «How animals hunt», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A hunter has to find its food, get close, catch it and hold on, and every hunter has its own plan: some chase, some sneak, some set traps and some simply --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/) [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/) / How animals hunt # How animals hunt Lesson 52 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 17 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/52-how-animals-hunt/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/0/) — A hunter has to find its food, get close, catch it and hold on, and every hunter has its own plan: some chase, some sneak, some set traps and some simply wait. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/1/) — The cheetah is the sprinter, the wolf pack is the long-distance team, the python and the praying mantis are the patient ambushers, and the spider and the anglerfish are trap builders. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/2/) — Watch a pet cat with a toy mouse: it creeps low, freezes, wiggles its bottom, then pounces; that wiggle is the cat testing its footing and getting ready to push off hard, exactly like a lion in the long grass. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/3/) — Most hunts fail, even for lions, so hunters must be clever with their energy: a cheetah can only sprint for a few seconds, and a python can wait for days because it needs to eat only every few weeks. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/4/) — Cartoons show the lion as king of the jungle, hunting alone while the lionesses rest; in real life lions live on grassy savannah, and the lionesses do most of the hunting, working together. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/5/) — A cheetah can reach about 100 km per hour, faster than any other land animal, but only for about 20 to 30 seconds before it overheats and must rest; while it lies panting, hyenas or lions often steal its catch. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/6/) — In a lion pride the lionesses do most of the hunting, often working together to surround zebras, wildebeest or buffalo, and most lion hunts fail. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/7/) — Barn owls have soft fringed edges on their feathers that make their flight almost silent, and their ears sit at different heights, so a sound reaches each ear a little differently and they can tell up from down and find a mouse by sound alone. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/8/) — An orb-weaver spider waits on its sticky web and feels the vibrations of trapped insects through tiny hairs on its legs; for its weight, spider silk is stronger than steel. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/9/) — A chameleon's tongue shoots out to about twice its body length in a fraction of a second, released like a stretched elastic band, with a sticky cup at the tip. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/10/) — A kingfisher dives head first with very little splash, and Japan's bullet train nose was redesigned to copy its bill, making it quieter in tunnels; water bends light, so a fish looks to be in a slightly different place from where it really is, and a kingfisher learns to aim right. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/11/) — A female deep-sea anglerfish has a glowing lure on her head, made by light-giving bacteria, and small fish in the dark swim towards it. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/13/) — Lying still uses very little energy, so a big python can go weeks between meals, while a tiny shrew burns energy so fast that it must eat every few hours. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/14/) — Grey wolves hunt in family packs, chasing deer, elk or moose over long distances; they are built for stamina rather than speed, and they often pick out a young, old or sick animal that will tire first and is less likely to hurt them. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/15/) — Some dolphins and humpback whales blow a ring of bubbles round a shoal so the fish, which will not swim through bubbles, bunch up inside, and dolphins also find fish by echolocation. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/16/) — Cats are ambush hunters, and even well-fed pet cats still hunt because the urge to chase and pounce is built in. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/17/) — A praying mantis waits without moving, then grabs insects with spiky front legs in less than a tenth of a second, and it can turn its head to look over its shoulder. - ← previous: [How animals hide: camouflage and mimicry](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/51-how-animals-hide/) - next →: [How animals defend themselves](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)