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In 1958 , Disney turn a wildlife documentary called " White Wilderness . " One scene depicts a petite , brownish - furred gnawer — a lemming — scuttling about in the Arctic Charles Percy Snow . " There is an actual living caption , " the narrator declare , before diving into an explanation of the so - called lemming felo-de-se myth .
In a turn of events , the movie shows large numbers of lemmings fall down a drop-off . The survivors swim out into the Arctic Ocean , where they finally die , according to the narrator . So is this portrayal exact ? Do lemming really kill themselves in droves ?
Lemmings don’t intentionally jump to their deaths.
The truth is that lemmings do n’t intentionally pass over to their deaths , scientist severalize Live Science .
" They do n’t do anything like that,“Andy Baltensperger , a landscape ecologist at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks , tell Live Science . " It ’s just not how biology work . "
In fact , Disneyfaked the whole scene , grant to a 2003 article issue by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game . A1983 investigationby the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation found that Disney filmmakers actually threw or push the lemming off the drop , using editing and blotto camera angles to suggest that the lemmings were purposefully ending their lives . Disney did not reply to a hot Science petition for comment by the publishing of this article .
Lemmings don’t intentionally jump to their deaths.
Although the myth was entirely manufactured , a few known lemming features might have inspired the view and perpetuated the myth .
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First , lemmings are adept natator . The swimming scene in the film " White Wilderness " could have happened even without the manager ’s heavy hand . On many of the belittled islands in northern Norway there are lemming population that have swum across lakes and rivers to reach new habitats , Dorothee Ehrich , a fourth-year research worker at UiT The Arctic University of Norway told Live Science .
But sometimes , when lemming swim across bodies of water , they may not find the other side , as they have direful seeing . Then , the lemmings might drown , Ehrich said . However , she emphasized that the lemmings are not drown themselves on purpose as the Disney documentary stated .
In accession to swimming artistry , lemmings can be prolific breeders . Every three to five geezerhood , lemming have universe booms that conduce to large number of them scurrying across the tundra . In these days , the population increase by about tenfold , Baltensperger say .
" There ’s a universe blowup of animals across the tundra , and it just look like they ’re coming out everywhere , " he said . " They get into your collapsible shelter and you have to look out that you do n’t step on them . "
spike in lemming numbers are likely connected to nutrient abundance and predation . During wintertime , lemmings live beneath the snowpack and can access vegetation still produce on the ground . If they have a safe provision of lichens , mosses , sedge and Gunter Wilhelm Grass , some lemming species can efficiently reproduce , Baltensperger said . By springtime , they accumulate large issue .
A large group of lemming as depicted in the Disney film might be potential after a productive winter . Yet the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ’s investigation found that the Disney film gang carry the mathematical group of lemming and place them at the cliff ’s edge . Lemmings do n’t jump , Balthensperger said , which may explicate why , accord to the 1983 report , the gang advertize the lemmings off the drop .
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Rather than designedly killing themselves , biologists think this lemming boom - and - flop cycle is in all likelihood driven by specialized marauder . Stoats and weasel are specially adapted to hunting lemmings . They have long , thin bodies that fit into lemming tunnels under the snow , where they rust the gnawer and take over their winter nests .
finally , the lemming population diminution in reception to overpredation but not because of suicide by jumping , Ehrich say . As lemmings lessen in act or disperse across the landscape painting to find Modern resource , their vulture are less effective and the lemming populations have a probability to start the hertz of abundance over again .
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