--- title: Small creatures and creepy-crawlies — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Small creatures and creepy-crawlies», a lesson of the myths course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Charlie stands in the garden with a spade, grinning: "Cut a worm in half and you get TWO worms. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/) [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/) / [Myths](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/) / Small creatures and creepy-crawlies # Small creatures and creepy-crawlies Lesson 9 of the myths 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/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/0/) — Charlie stands in the garden with a spade, grinning: "Cut a worm in half and you get TWO worms. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/1/) — Free worm!" Lottie's brother whispers at bedtime that earwigs crawl into your ears at night and munch your brain. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/2/) — Minibeasts are small, fast and strange, so we make up stories about them, and the scarier the story, the faster it spreads round the playground. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/3/) — Most of the stories fall apart when you look closely: a cut worm usually loses its tail end, earwigs got their spooky name from old folk beliefs, and daddy longlegs are harmless to people. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/4/) — Some fall apart when you simply count: a spider has eight legs and two body parts, so it isn't an insect, and a seven-spot ladybird has seven spots its whole life, so spots aren't birthdays. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/5/) — When you want to settle an argument about a creature, read a guide, count, or watch; never hurt an animal to prove a point. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/6/) — If you cut an earthworm in half, usually only the head end may survive and grow a new tail; the tail end dies, though some flatworms can regrow from pieces. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/7/) — None of the creatures called "daddy longlegs" is dangerous to people; cellar spiders' venom is weak for us, they very rarely bite, and they even eat other spiders. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/8/) — Warts are caused by a human virus, so toads can't give you warts; some toads have skin that irritates, so wash your hands after touching one. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/9/) — Only honeybees usually die after stinging people, because their barbed sting sticks in our skin; bumblebees and wasps can sting more than once. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/10/) — Earwigs don't seek out ears and can't eat brains; their name probably comes from old folk beliefs. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/11/) — House flies live about two to four weeks; it is adult mayflies that may live only hours or a day. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/13/) — Adult clothes moths don't eat clothes; their caterpillars eat wool and other natural fibres. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/15/) — Ants can lift many times their own weight, but a giant ant would collapse, because when a body gets bigger its weight grows much faster than the strength of its legs. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/9-small-creatures-and-creepy-crawlies/16/) — Some snails go dormant (shut up still, as if in a deep sleep) for long periods in dry weather, in rare cases even years, waiting for damp conditions. - ← previous: [Wild animals and tall tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/8-wild-animals-and-tall-tales/) - next →: [Birds and baby animals](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/10-birds-and-baby-animals/) - ↑ back to [Myths](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/)