![]() ![]() No matter: lemmings have short ears, legs, and tails, which helps reduce heat loss in the winter. Unlike other rodents, they can’t dig burrows, since a layer of frozen soil (a.k.a. One reason why lemmings are so excellent at bringing their numbers back from the brink? They can breed a few weeks after birth. Heck, maybe they just wanted to go swimming.) (But there’s no real evidence that they were trying to commit suicide. The idea that lemmings jump off cliffs, attempting to die, could come from researchers observing restless Norwegian lemmings-forced to expand their territory-jumping onto the ice and into the water during high peak years. #YOUTUBE LEMMINGS JUMPING OFF CLIFFS PLUS#Though weather and winter snow cover probably play a role, researchers have also investigated food supply-lots of lemmings means the Arctic vegetation disappears when the numbers crash, the vegetation has time to grow back-disease, plus stress and inter-species fighting. It’s still not entirely clear why lemming populations explode every four years, then drop so drastically to the point that the species could actually become extinct. For example, research shows that both snowy owls and Arctic foxes only produce successful offspring during “lemming years.” For this reason, they have a huge impact on the lives and survival of almost everyone else living in the treeless, Arctic tundra, including birds of prey, foxes, and ermines. Where did the myth come from? Lemming populations fluctuate dramatically, following a roughly four-year cycle. Even though the old myth-that these Arctic rodents commit mass suicide-has been busted for a long time, some people still believe it. Gauthier's research examines why the lemming population cycle is so dramatic and what would happen if it didn't occur, or was disturbed by climate change.įoxes, snowy owls and other predators can usually survive a dip in the lemming population, where the next peak is three to five years away, he said.Poor lemming. Iqaluit may have experienced a peak year in the summer of 2017, but Kovic says that won't be clear until the spring when lemmings emerge again. ![]() "They can have babies several times during the winter and that's what leads to these population build ups." ![]() They reproduce during the winter," said Gilles Gauthier, who is a professor at Laval University and has studied lemmings on Bylot Island since the early 1990s. "These population explosions start during the winter because lemmings are active throughout the winter. The rodent is affected by climate change because increasing freeze-thaw cycles in the fall season mean it can't get to seeds or roots buried by ice. What lemmings are up to at this time of year is still a bit of a mystery to locals and researchers, but they are most likely reproducing.Ī lemming is pictured in Iqaluit, Nunavut. The scene was staged, but it still led some to believe that lemmings follow each other en masse over cliffs to their death. In the film, lemmings throw themselves off of a cliff into the Arctic Ocean. CBC Archives: Where do all the lemmings go?."They have never been known to jump off cliffs in suicide," he said, referring to a scene from the 1958 Walt Disney documentary White Wilderness. Both to travel under and stay warm in –40 C temperatures. Lemmings need deep snow this time of year. Grass and willow, some of the favourite foods of lemmings, poked through. Kovic stood on thin snow in an open space on the edge of Iqaluit. That's Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit ," said the Iqaluit hunter and elder. "One thing everybody seems to believe that they jump off cliffs when they're abundant. Ben Kovic wants to quash any myths about lemmings. ![]()
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