--- title: How animals defend themselves — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «How animals defend themselves», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: If you cannot run faster than the fox, you need another plan, and animals have hundreds: spines, armour, stinks, poison, tricks, fake eyes, --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/) [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 defend themselves # How animals defend themselves Lesson 53 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 15 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/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/0/) — If you cannot run faster than the fox, you need another plan, and animals have hundreds: spines, armour, stinks, poison, tricks, fake eyes, playing dead and standing together. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/1/) — A hedgehog in the garden is a good example: when the dog sniffs it, a strong muscle pulls its prickly skin round it like a drawstring bag, and the dog gets a nose full of spines instead of a snack. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/2/) — Some animals hide, but others want to be seen: the bright blue poison dart frog and the black and white skunk wear warning colours that say, loud and clear, do not even try. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/5/) — A hedgehog has about 5000 to 7000 spines, which are stiff hollow hairs, and a strong muscle lets it roll into a tight prickly ball. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/6/) — Porcupines raise and rattle barbed quills and back into an attacker; they cannot shoot their quills, but the quills come off easily and grow back. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/7/) — A skunk can spray a very smelly liquid up to about 3 metres, but it usually warns first by stamping, hissing and raising its tail. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/8/) — Wild poison dart frogs have poison in their skin, made from the ants and mites they eat, and their bright colours warn predators, which learn the colours and leave them alone; zoo-raised ones fed on crickets are not poisonous. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/9/) — A pufferfish gulps water into a stretchy stomach and swells to several times its size; puffing up is stressful, so it only does it when it must. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/10/) — Many lizards can drop their tail on purpose; it wriggles to distract the attacker, and the new tail grows back with cartilage instead of bones; growing a new one costs the lizard a lot of energy. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/11/) — Octopuses and squid squirt dark ink and jet away, and some squid make an ink blob shaped like themselves as a decoy. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/12/) — A honeybee's barbed sting gets stuck in thick skin like ours and tears away, so the bee dies; wasps have smooth stings and can sting again; the hive is full of the bee's sisters, so dying to protect it protects its family. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/13/) — Some people are dangerously allergic to stings and need help fast. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/15/) — A peacock butterfly suddenly flashes four big eye spots, which startle a bird before it can think, and even hisses; in experiments, birds were much more scared of butterflies whose eye spots were not painted over. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/16/) — The Virginia opossum may fall over, go stiff, drool and smell bad when terrified; it is more like fainting than acting, and many predators lose interest. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/17/) — Musk oxen form a ring facing outwards, with calves in the middle, so wolves meet only a wall of horns. - ← previous: [How animals hunt](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/52-how-animals-hunt/) - next →: [Migration: the great journeys](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/54-migration-the-great-journeys/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)