Polar Husky A to Z
Lemmings
In the summer they are brown but in the winter they turn white, to camouflage from the snowy owl and other predators.
The lemming is the smallest mammal of the High Arctic.
The smallest of the mammals of the High Arctic, lemmings are key species in arctic ecosystems. For unknown reasons, lemming populations fluctuate drastically, peaking about every four years and then crashing almost to extinction. Because the small bodies of lemmings are important food for Ermines, Arctic Foxes, Snowy Owls, Gyrfalcons, and Jaegers, this mysterious cycle controls the rhythm of animal life on the tundra.
Together with their close vole and muskrat relatives, lemmings form part of largest mammal superfamily, called the Muroidea (which also includes the rats, mice, hamsters, and gerbils).
With the autumn moult, besides from the summer coat being replaced by a solid white winter one, their front feet develop two greatly enlarged claws, presumably to help dig through the hard-packed tundra snow. Lemmings weigh from about one to four ounces (30 to 112 g) and measure from 2-6 inches (7-15 cm) long. They usually have long, soft fur and very short tails and are herbivorous, meaning they feed mostly on leaves and shoots, grasses, roots, and bulbs. Like many rodents' teeth, their incisors (front teeth used to gnaw or cut) grow continuously, allowing them to food that might be too tough for other small animals.
For housing, lemmings make simple burrows in the tundra during the summer, and keep warm in shallow burrows in the snow during winter.
Lemmings do not hibernate through the harsh northern winter. They remain active, finding food by burrowing through the snow and eating grass and seeds they've stored away. They are solitary animals by nature, meeting only to mate and then going their separate ways; like all rodents, they have a high reproductive rate and can breed rapidly in good seasons.
One of the Inuit names for the collared lemming is kilangmiutak, which means "one-who-comes-from-the-sky." The legend of lemmings falling from the sky is common to Inuit all across the North American Arctic and Scandinavia. It probably arose because of the sudden appearance of lemmings when the snow melts following a winter of intensive reproduction. Lemmings, particularly the collared lemming with its presumed origin from the sky, were sometimes used by shamans as a source of supernatural powers.
Many people think that lemmings commit mass suicide by jumping off of ocean cliffs during migration. This is a myth. Research shows that the Walt Disney filmmakers set up a fake scene in the 1958 documentary, White Wilderness, where lemmings were seen jumping off a cliff. In reality, most lemmings live too far away from the ocean for cliff-jumping to even be possible.
The behavior of lemmings is much the same as that of many other rodents which have periodic population booms and then scatter in all directions, seeking the food and shelter that their natural habitat cannot provide. While lemmings don't hurl themselves from cliffs into the ocean, they are excellent swimmers and will cross bodies of water in their search for food and shelter. Sometimes they do drown, accidentally. They can also become cannibalistic during times when food is very scarce!
Links to Learn More
- Read the true story behind the lemming suicide myth. Learn more >>
- Find out how lemmings control the rhythm of animal life on the tundra. Learn more >>
Source courtesy of: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemming, www.wildlifenews.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.viewarticle&articlesid=56&issueid=6
Photo courtesy of: www.wildlifenews.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.viewarticle&articlesid=56&issueid=6
