A Little Bit More
Lemmings are rather undistinguished-looking rodents that look much like chubby House Mice. Their status as “sucidal” gained widespread acceptance in a Walt Disney film produced in 1958 and was then shown repeatedly on TV for many years afterward. In this film, lemmings were placed in an artificial setting and filmed to show what looked like streams of migrating lemmings bent on sucide. This inaccurate deptiction, unfortunately, was dramatically photographed and caught the imagination of viewers. Subsequent research has clearly shown that many rodents do have population rises and falls with subsequent mass movements but they do not commit sucide. Lemming population swings tend to go in 3 to 4 year cycles with few animals to be found in low years and superabundance populations in high years.
Definitions
Dire: terrible or especially bad outcome
Activities
Science – The Real Story
Objectives: A look at some population dynamics
Materials: Access to web
An article written in 2003 about research on lemming populations in Greenland lays out what seems to be happening with this rodent. Take a look at these sites and see what they have to say.
Lemmings' death wish nothing but a tale — told by Disney- Lemmings puzzle scientists
- Lemmings Suicide Myth
Population dynamics can be quite interesting. Here’s a site that graphs the human population from 1750 through 2150.
Lemmings are not the only animal that can have an enormous swing in population. Take a look at this document and see what happened to Reindeer that were introduced to an area of Alaska.
Key Concepts
Life Cycles, Populations and Ecosystems
Questions
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Posted by Daniel Walborn on July 20, 2006 at 02:35 PM
Q: Is it possible to predict years when the lemming population will be low? For instance, what about this coming winter, the winter of 2006-2007. Will the lemming population be high/medium/low?
A: Your question is a good one but I think there are enough variables in this "equation" that no one can know from one year to the next for sure. My guess would be however, that wildlife scientists in your area, for example, do keep an eye out on these cycles and may have a feeling whether this year will be another boom/bust or not. Although these cycles do have a pattern, it's not a consistent one. Hope this helps a bit. Thanks for asking.