--- title: The reptile house: snakes — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The reptile house: snakes», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: In the reptile house a big python lies so still you think it is plastic; a snake is cold-blooded, warming itself under a heat lamp instead of bu --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/) [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 reptile house: snakes # The reptile house: snakes Lesson 87 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/87-reptile-house-snakes/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/0/) — In the reptile house a big python lies so still you think it is plastic; a snake is cold-blooded, warming itself under a heat lamp instead of burning food, so it can go weeks or even months between meals. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/1/) — Its forked tongue flicks in and out not to sting but to smell: the two tips pick up scent from the air and tell the snake which side the smell is stronger on. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/2/) — In cartoons a snake charmer plays a flute and the cobra dances to the tune, and in The Jungle Book Kaa hypnotises with spinning eyes, but snakes have no outer ears and hear little of the music, and they have no eyelids, so their stare only looks spooky. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/3/) — The cobra sways to keep facing the moving flute, which it sees as a threat; a snake would much rather warn you off than waste its venom. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/4/) — Snakes are cold-blooded, so they need far less food than mammals; a big python can go months without a meal. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/5/) — A snake smells with its forked tongue, touching scent to a special organ in the roof of its mouth; the tongue is harmless. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/7/) — Before shedding, a snake's eyes turn cloudy as the old skin over them loosens; snakes grow all their lives, but the outer skin cannot stretch, so they peel off the old skin whole, often inside out, eye caps and all. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/8/) — Snakes swallow prey whole; their lower jaw is in two halves joined by stretchy tissue, so the jaws stretch rather than coming «unhinged». - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/9/) — The king cobra is the longest venomous snake, up to about 5 metres; it spreads its neck ribs into a hood as a warning and eats mostly other snakes. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/10/) — Snakes have no outer ears and hear little of sounds in the air, but they feel vibrations through the ground and their jaws. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/11/) — Snakes have no eyelids; a clear scale covers each eye. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/12/) — Some harmless snakes, like the milk snake, look like the venomous coral snake, which is called mimicry; colour rhymes are not reliable, so never touch a wild snake. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/13/) — A rattlesnake's rattle is made of hollow rings of hard skin; a ring is added at each shed, several times a year, and old rings break off, so you cannot tell its age by counting them. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/14/) — Antivenom is made by giving horses tiny safe doses of venom and collecting the antibodies their blood makes; some blood pressure medicines were first found by studying venom. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/87-reptile-house-snakes/15/) — The smallest snakes, threadsnakes, are about 10 centimetres long and eat ant and termite larvae; the reticulated python can grow longer than 6 metres. - ← previous: [The monkey house and the lemurs of Madagascar](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/86-monkey-house-and-lemurs-of-madagascar/) - next →: [The reptile house: Komodo dragons, chameleons, tortoises and crocodiles](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/88-reptile-house-komodo-chameleons-tortoises-crocodiles/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)