Which Of The Following Animals From The Arctic Tundra Are Falsely Known As Suicidal Rodents

Tribe of rodents of the family Cricetidae

Lemming

Norway lemming (Lemmus lemmus)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Rodentia
Family:	Cricetidae
Subfamily:	Arvicolinae
Groups included
Dicrostonychini – collared lemmings Lagurini – steppe lemmings Lemmini – truthful lemmings
Cladistically included only traditionally excluded taxa
Arvicolini Ellobiusini – mole voles Myodini Ondatrini – muskrats Phenacomyini – tree and heather voles Pliomyini Prometheomyini

A lemming is a modest rodent, usually plant in or near the Chill in tundra biomes. Lemmings grade the subfamily Arvicolinae (besides known as Microtinae) together with voles and muskrats, which form part of the superfamily Muroidea, which besides includes rats, mice, hamsters, and gerbils. In popular culture, a longstanding myth holds that they jump off cliffs and commit mass suicide.

Clarification and habitat [edit]

Lemmings measure out around 13–18 cm (5–7 in) in length and counterbalance around 23–34 yard (0.viii–i.2 oz). Lemmings are quite rounded in shape, with brown and black, long, soft fur. They have a very short tail, a stubby, hairy snout, curt legs, and small-scale ears. They have a flattened claw on the first digit of their forepart feet, which helps them to dig in the snowfall. They are herbivorous, feeding more often than not on mosses and grasses. They also forage through the snow surface to find berries, leaves, shoots, roots, bulbs, and lichens.^[1] Lemmings choose their preferred dietary vegetation disproportionately to its occurrence in their habitat.^[2] They assimilate grasses and sedges less effectively than related voles.^[iii] Like other rodents, their incisors grow continuously, allowing them to feed on much tougher forage.^{[ description needed ]} Lemmings practice not hibernate through the harsh northern winter. They remain agile, finding food past burrowing through the snowfall. These rodents alive in large tunnel systems below the snow in winter, which protect them from predators. Their burrows have rest areas, toilet areas, and nesting rooms. They brand nests out of grasses, feathers, and muskox wool (qiviut). In the spring, they movement to college ground, where they live on mount heaths or in forests, continuously convenance earlier returning in fall to the tundra.

Behaviour [edit]

Like many other rodents, lemmings have periodic population booms and so disperse in all directions, seeking nutrient and shelter their natural habitats cannot provide. The Norway lemming and brown lemming are two of the few vertebrates which reproduce so speedily that their population fluctuations are cluttered,^[iv] ^[5] rather than following linear growth to a carrying capacity or regular oscillations. Why lemming populations fluctuate with such great variance roughly every four years, before numbers drop to near extinction, is not known.^{[half dozen]} Lemming behaviour and advent are markedly unlike from those of other rodents, which are inconspicuously coloured and try to conceal themselves from their predators. Lemmings, by dissimilarity, are clearly coloured and behave aggressively toward predators and even man observers. The lemming defense force system is idea to be based on aposematism (alert brandish).^[vii] Fluctuations in the lemming population affect the behaviour of predators, and may fuel irruptions of birds of prey such equally snowy owls to areas farther s.^[8] For many years, the population of lemmings was believed to change with the population cycle, but now some show suggests their predators' populations, particularly those of the stoat, may be more closely involved in changing the lemming population.^{[ commendation needed ]}

Misconceptions [edit]

Misconceptions well-nigh lemmings go dorsum many centuries. In the 1530s, geographer Zeigler of Strasbourg proposed the theory that the creatures fell out of the sky during stormy conditions^[9] and and so died suddenly when the grass grew in bound.^[x] This description was contradicted by natural historian Ole Worm, who accepted that lemmings could fall out of the sky, just claimed that they had been brought over by the wind rather than created past spontaneous generation. Worm published dissections of a lemming, which showed that they are anatomically like to about other rodents such as voles and hamsters, and the work of Carl Linnaeus proved that they had a natural origin.

Lemmings have become the discipline of a widely pop misconception that they are driven to commit mass suicide when they migrate by jumping off cliffs. It is non a deliberate mass suicide, in which animals voluntarily choose to dice, merely rather a result of their migratory behavior. Driven by strong biological urges, some species of lemmings may migrate in large groups when population density becomes too great. They can swim and may choose to cross a body of water in search of a new habitat. In such cases, many drown if the body of h2o is an ocean or is so wide as to exceed their concrete capabilities. Thus, the unexplained fluctuations in the population of Norwegian lemmings, and perhaps a small amount of semantic confusion (suicide non being limited to voluntary deliberation, simply also the result of foolishness), helped requite ascension to the popular stereotype of the suicidal lemmings, particularly later this behaviour was staged in the Walt Disney documentary White Wilderness in 1958.^[11] The misconception itself is much older, dating dorsum to at least the tardily 19th century. In the August 1877 issue of Popular Scientific discipline Monthly, apparently suicidal lemmings are presumed to be pond the Atlantic Body of water in search of the submerged continent of Lemuria.^[12]

Another myth may take roots in the fiercely aggressive nature of lemmings during population booms, and the corresponding leftovers of predatory frenzies: lemmings exercise not explode.^[11]

Classification [edit]

Gild Rodentia
- Superfamily Muroidea
  - Family unit Cricetidae
    - Subfamily Arvicolinae: voles, lemmings, and related species
      - Tribe Dicrostonychini
        
        Dicrostonyx
        
        Northern collared lemming (D. groenlandicus)
        
        Ungava collared lemming (D. hudsonius)
        
        Nelson'south collared lemming (D. nelsoni)
        
        Ogilvie Mountains collared lemming (D. nunatakensis)
        
        Richardson's collared lemming (D. richardsoni)
        
        Arctic lemming (D. torquatus)
        
        Unalaska collared lemming (D. unalascensis)
      - Tribe Lemmini
        
        Lemmus
        
        Amur lemming (Fifty. amurensis)
        
        Norway lemming (50. lemmus)
        
        Beringian lemming (L. nigripes)
        
        East Siberian lemming (L. paulus)
        
        West Siberian lemming (50. sibiricus)
        
        North American chocolate-brown lemming (50. trimucronatus)
        
        Myopus
        
        Wood lemming (M. schisticolor)
        
        Synaptomys
        
        Northern bog lemming (S. borealis)
        
        Southern bog lemming (S. cooperi)
      - Tribe Lagurini
        
        Eolagurus
        
        Xanthous steppe lemming (East. luteus)
        
        Przewalski's steppe lemming (E. przewalskii)
        
        Lagurus
        
        Steppe lemming (L. lagurus)

In popular culture and media [edit]

The misconception of lemming "mass suicide" is long-standing and has been popularized by a number of factors.

It was well enough known to be mentioned in "The Marching Morons", a 1951 short story past Cyril Yard. Kornbluth.

In 1955, Disney Studio illustrator Carl Barks drew an Uncle Scrooge risk comic with the title "The Lemming with the Locket". This comic, which was inspired by a 1953 American Mercury commodity, showed massive numbers of lemmings jumping over Norwegian cliffs.^[13] ^[14]

Lemmings likewise announced in Arthur C. Clarke'due south 1953 brusque story "The Possessed", where their suicidal urges are attributed to the lingering consciousness of an alien group listen, which had inhabited the species in the prehistoric past.^[fifteen]

Perhaps the most influential and, for the lemmings involved, tragic, presentation of the myth was the 1958 Disney film White Wilderness which won an Academy Award for Documentary Feature and in which producers threw lemmings off a cliff to their deaths to false footage of a "mass suicide", equally well as faked scenes of mass migration.^[16] A Canadian Dissemination Corporation documentary, Roughshod Camera, plant the lemmings used for White Wilderness were flown from Hudson Bay to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where far from "casting themselves bodily out into space" (as the film's narrator states), they were, in fact, dumped off the cliff by the camera crew from a truck.^[17] ^[18] Because of the limited number of lemmings at their disposal, which in whatsoever instance were the wrong subspecies, the migration scenes were faux using tight photographic camera angles and a large, snow-covered turntable.

The song "Lemmings (Including 'Cog')" from the 1971 album Pawn Hearts by progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator is about a person who sees their loved ones "crashing on quite blindly to the sea".^[19]

The 1983 song Synchronicity Ii by the The Police force makes an allusion to the supposed suicidal tendencies of lemmings in its reference to commuters "packed like lemmings into shiny metallic boxes, contestants in a suicidal race."

In 1991, a puzzle-platform video game called Lemmings was released, in which the thespian must salvage a certain percentage of the titular small humanoid creatures as they march heedlessly through a dangerous environment. The game became quite popular and has been through several versions upwards to the nowadays day.

In 2006, the German language Fun Metallic, Comedy Rock, and Neue Deutsche Härte ring Knorkator produced the comedy stone song Wir werden alle sterben (Eng.: We are all going to dice) in 2006. The lyrics state that all signs signal that we are all going to die soon, perchance even today. Too a child sings some parts stating that this might too happen during brushing teeth, making it more funny but dark. The lyrics do not mention any lemmings, but the music video (available freely on YouTube^[20]) shows some creatures which are conspicuously supposed to be lemmings dying in different situations. The video starts with the typical visualization of these lemmings lining up walking to and over a cliff (which, while falling to their deaths, happily sing about the party coming to an end).

Lemmings are primary characters of the 2016 French animated goggle box series Grizzy and the Lemmings. As a humorous allusion to the popular myth, the series frequently features lemmings jumping down from elevated platforms.

In the animated Disney picture show Zootopia (2016) lemmings are employed as investment bankers of Lemmings Brothers. They are exceptionally decumbent to herd instinct, including mass suicide.

References [edit]

^ Soininen, Eeva; Zinger, Lucie; Gielly, Ludovic; Yoccoz, Nigel; Henden, John-André; Ims, Rolf (four April 2017). "Not simply mosses: lemming winter diets as described past Dna metabarcoding". Polar Biology. 40 (10): 2097–2103. doi:10.1007/s00300-017-2114-three. hdl:10037/12365. S2CID 43524891.
^ Batzli, George O; Pitelka, Frank A (1983). "Nutritional Ecology of Microtine Rodents: Food Habits of Lemmings almost Barrow, Alaska". Journal of Mammalogy. 64 (4): 648–655. doi:10.2307/1380521. JSTOR 1380521.
^ Batzli, George O; Cole, F Russell (1979). "Nutritional Ecology of Microtine Rodents: Digestibility of Forage". Journal of Mammalogy. 60 (iv): 740–750. doi:x.2307/1380189. JSTOR 1380189.
^ Turchin, Peter (2003). Complex Population Dynamics: A Theoretical/Empirical Synthesis. Princeton University Press. p. 391. ISBN978-0-691-09021-iv.
^ Stenseth, Northward. C.; Chan, K. S.; Framstad, E.; Tong, H. (1998). "Stage- and density-dependent population dynamics in Norwegian lemmings: Interaction between deterministic and stochastic processes". Proceedings. Biological Sciences. 265 (1409): 1957–68. doi:ten.1098/rspb.1998.0526. JSTOR 51151. PMC1689487. PMID 9821362.
^ Hinterland Who's Who – Lemmings Archived 2011-11-07 at the Wayback Car
^ Andersson, Malte (1976). "Lemmus lemmus: A Possible Instance of Aposematic Coloration and Beliefs". Journal of Mammalogy. 57 (iii): 461–469. doi:ten.2307/1379296. JSTOR 1379296.
^ Fears, Darryl (24 February 2014). "Lemmings fuel biggest snowy-owl migration in 50 years". The Guardian . Retrieved nine March 2018.
^ This notion is also featured in the sociology of the Inupiat and Yupik peoples at Norton Sound.
^ "Lemmings Suicide Myth". ABC Science. Karl S. Kruszelnicki Pty Ltd. 27 April 2004. Archived from the original on fourteen July 2007.
^ ^a ^b Nicholls, Henry (21 November 2014). "The truth most Norwegian lemmings". BBC Globe. Archived from the original on 24 Nov 2014. Retrieved 9 June 2019.
^ Crotch, William Duppa (August 1877). "The Norwegian Lemming and its Migrations". Popular Scientific discipline Monthly. D. Appleton & Company. Vol. 11. pp.412-413 – via Wikisource.
^ Lederer, Muriel. "Render of the Pied Piper". The American Mercury, Dec. 1953, pp. 33–34.
^ Blum, Geoffrey. (1996). "Ane Billion of Something", in: Uncle Scrooge Adventures past Carl Barks, #9.
^ Clarke, Arthur C. (2001). The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. Tor Books. pp. 423–427. ISBN978-0-575-07065-iii.
^ "'White Wilderness' Faked Lemming Suicides". Snopes.com. 12 Dec 2015.
^ Cruel Photographic camera Archived 2009-01-17 at the Wayback Car Time piece: fourteen:01–15:27
^ Moss, Tyler (10 June 2013). "Practise Lemmings Actually Run Off Cliffs to Their Expiry?". Mental Floss. Archived from the original on 7 Apr 2014.
^ Van der Graaf Generator – Lemmings , retrieved 2020-06-fourteen
^ "KNORKATOR - Wir werden (OFFICIAL VIDEO)". YouTube.

External links [edit]

Wait up lemming in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

"The Lemming Cycle" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2005-12-23(92.half-dozen KiB). {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link) Commodity by Nils Christian Stenseth on the population cycles of lemmings and other northern rodents.
"Collared Lemming" (PDF) (177 KiB). {{cite spider web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link) Commodity about Collared Lemming, meet also the main folio on Alaskan mammals.
Rebuttal of lemming suicide:
- Alaska Wild fauna News.
- Lemmings, dying on camera (via Wayback Machine).