MYTH OF LEMMINGS JUMPING OFF CLIFFS MOVIE

These species have several subspecies, such as the collared lemmings, the southern bog lemmings, the yellow steppe lemmings, the wood lemmings, bog lemmings, and the true lemmings, among others. They are very small animals and are associated with the myth of jumping off cliffs. Lemmings are rodents who have a thick fur of brown or gray or white color. Miller is director of science communications for The Nature Conservancy and editor of the Cool Green Science blog.Lemming Interesting Facts What type of animal is a lemming? In the end, it would appear it is not the lemming who deserves the reputation for вЂњmindlessly following.вЂќ

MYTH OF LEMMINGS JUMPING OFF CLIFFS MOVIE

Lemmings are still invoked in songs, cartoons, films and other popular media, always in a derogatory manner.ДЄnd so, for generations people have accepted and repeated a movie fiction as fact, this despite considerable biological research on lemmings and their arctic ecosystems. Politicians love to use the term, often to describe the opposing party.

To call someone a lemming is to suggest he or she is a blind follower. Still, the facts havenвЂ™t mattered for the lemmingвЂ™s public image. Today, it seems like nothing more than an exercise in animal cruelty. The unfortunate lemmings were then herded over a cliff and into the water below вЂ“ creating the movieвЂ™s most dramatic scene. This created the illusion of large numbers of animals roaming the habitat, when in reality it was the same animals repeatedly passing by the camera. The film crew placed a relatively small number of lemmings on a turntable. ItвЂ™s now well documented that this was not a migration at all the segment was filmed in Alberta, far from the lemmingвЂ™s arctic realm. While the movie may now appear outdated and grainy, that sticky idea has lasted. It also convinced moviegoers that, when lemming populations grow too high, they migrate and commit suicide en masse

The movie won an Academy Award for Best Documentary. It included a remarkable bit of lemming migration footage, including lots of the rodents plunging off a cliff: Then came a 1958 Disney movie, White Wilderness. The lemming stories remained in the realm of folklore for centuries. Some scientists, for instance, once believed birds hibernated under ground in the winter, not understanding migration). (Such stories may seem fanciful to us, but at the time they were considered scientific. They created stories to explain these happenings.ДЄs early as the 1500s, people told of lemmings raining from the sky. They may have even seen some that had slipped off cliffs. ItвЂ™s much the same for lemmings (or Serengeti wildebeest or spawning salmon or any other large congregation of prey).Д®arly observers likely noted super-abundant lemmings and saw many dead ones littering land and water. There are dead voles and bits of voles littering the ground. Many fall into streams and drown ( or are eaten by trout). Hawks, owls, foxes, coyotes and snakes dine frenetically on the abundant mammals.

IвЂ™ve witnessed population explosions of voles, another small rodent. This may entail crossing rivers and streams, and invariably some drown. Lemmings will also migrate when their populations are high. When lemmings are super-abundant, there will be carnage: predators take advantage of the easy food source, as shown dramatically with the owl nest lined with 70 lemmings.

As Smith writes, lemmings do have population fluctuations. How did such a fantastical story originate?ДЄs with many myths and tall tales, it is perhaps loosely rooted in real events. They may well be behind the snowy owl invasion occurring in the eastern United States, and lemming populations affect other wildlife from foxes to geese.Д«ut of the many amazing lemming facts Smith described, he didnвЂ™t include lemmings leaping off cliffs. Ornithologist Joe SmithвЂ™s popular blog on Cool Green Science this week focused on how lemmings shape nearly every aspect of arctic habitats. ItвЂ™s an enduring image: thousands of lemmings, mindlessly following each other over the cliff to their deaths.

Myth of lemmings jumping off cliffs