--- title: The elephant house: herds, feet, food and the mouse myth — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The elephant house: herds, feet, food and the mouse myth», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: An elephant herd is a family of mothers, daughters, aunts and babies, and at the front walks the grandmother, the --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/) [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/) / The elephant house: herds, feet, food… # The elephant house: herds, feet, food and the mouse myth Lesson 83 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/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/0/) — An elephant herd is a family of mothers, daughters, aunts and babies, and at the front walks the grandmother, the matriarch, who remembers where the water is and which dangers to avoid. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/1/) — In the elephant house the floor is deep, warm sand instead of concrete, because an animal as heavy as several cars gets sore feet and joints on hard ground, and keepers trim its toenails with a big rasp. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/2/) — Stand still and you may feel a deep rumble more than hear it: elephants talk with sounds so low that some are below what our ears can catch, and they travel kilometres. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/3/) — And the mouse? - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/4/) — In cartoons an elephant shrieks and jumps on a stool when a mouse runs past, but real elephants are not afraid of mice; they may just step aside from anything that moves suddenly by their feet, as you would. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/5/) — Elephant herds are led by the oldest female, the matriarch; grown-up males leave as teenagers and live alone or in groups of young bulls. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/6/) — Elephants are not afraid of mice; they cannot see well right by their feet, so a sudden movement there can startle them, but terror is a cartoon joke. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/7/) — Modern elephant houses have deep sand and heated floors, because years on hard concrete hurt elephants' feet and joints. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/8/) — An elephant walks on its tiptoes with a big fatty pad behind the toes, and zoo elephants walk less than wild ones, so their nails do not wear down and they are trained to lift their feet so keepers can trim them. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/9/) — Hay nets hung high make elephants stretch and pick as they would from trees; wild elephants feed for up to 16 hours a day. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/10/) — An adult elephant can eat more than 100 kilograms of food a day and digests only about half of it, so its dung is full of plant fibre. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/11/) — Many zoos turn elephant dung into compost for gardens, and in some countries it is even made into paper. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/12/) — Elephants are pregnant for about 22 months, longer than any other land animal, and a newborn weighs about 100 kilograms and often walks under its mother's belly for shade and safety. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/13/) — An elephant's ears help it hear and lose heat, but cannot lift it; African elephants have huge ears and two «fingers» at the trunk tip; Asian elephants have smaller ears, a rounder back and one «finger». - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/15/) — Elephants talk with very low rumbles that travel far, and they may feel them through their feet as well as hear them. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/16/) — Many zoos have stopped elephant shows such as painting, because training for tricks was sometimes harsh, and now train elephants only for health care, using rewards. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/83-elephant-house-herds-feet-food-mouse-myth/17/) — Elephants swim well, using the trunk held above the water like a snorkel. - ← previous: [The big cats house: snow leopards, jaguars, small cats and enrichment](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/82-big-cats-house-snow-leopards-jaguars-small-cats/) - next →: [The ape house: gorillas and chimpanzees](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/84-ape-house-gorillas-and-chimpanzees/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)