But the deception has been exposed and safely assuming they aren’t spontaneously appearing in clouds or exploding we still need to explain this sudden appearance and disappearance of these lemmings.Įven now, we don’t have the whole story but we have many parts of the puzzle. The producers having fallen for the legend themselves wanted to include it in their documentary, but after they couldn’t see it for real they imported a whole bunch of lemmings and threw them off the cliff themselves.Īpart from contributing to the untimely and unnecessary deaths of some of Mickey Mouse’s close cousins this Academy Award winning documentary cemented the lemming myth in people’s minds for many years. It certainly distressed me that these lemmings didn’t jump - they were pushed. Well, here’s the rub and this may be distressing to some listeners. In 1950 Disney filmed a documentary called White Wilderness, and they got some never before seen footage of some lemmings hurling themselves off a cliff to their doom. The cliff jumping behaviour would die out.īut there’s a reason this paradoxical plunging is still so widely believed - it was actually caught on camera. A selfless and suicidal lemming would be taken out of gene pool, while a selfish lemming who didn’t follow the crowd would have lots of babies and reproduce successfully. And it should do as, evolutionary speaking, it makes absolutely no sense. To is the property of their respective owners, and Athropolis is not responsible for their content.And the theory that still sticks to this day was that for the greater good of the species when the population grew too big the altruistic lemmings would run, in hoards, off of cliffs and drown themselves. The content of web sites that this site has links (2) Click button for to search this web siteĬopyright © 2005 Athropolis Productions Limited. (1) Click the button for Web (below) to search the World Wide Web GUIDE TO ARCTIC SUNRISE & SUNSET: How much sunlight or darkness is there in the Arctic on each day of the year? It's enough to make ya wanna.Ĭlick pictures for more information and credits.ĭICTIONARY: Just "double-click" any unlinked word on this page for the definition from Merriam-Webster's Student Electronic Dictionary at Word Central.ĪRCTIC LIBRARY & GLOSSARY: Check this section for an index of the rest of the things you really need to know about the Arctic.ĪRCTIC MAPS & WEATHER REPORTS: Maps of the Northwest Passage, explorers' routes, iceberg sources, Nunavut, the Arctic by treeline, temperature.ĪRCTIC LINKS: Even more information! Links to sites related to the Arctic and "Iceberg: the Story of the Throps and the Squallhoots".
Sometimes many drown, but you don't hear people accusing THEM of being suicidal! The "suicide" sequence was created by herding the poor little lemmings over a small cliff into a river!Ĭaribou also migrate and often have to swim across water. Filmmakers imported lemmings and filmed the "migration" by placing them on a turntable covered with snow, and then shooting it from many different angles. The scenes weren't even filmed in the lemmings' natural surroundings.
The "suicide" myth was fuelled by a 1958 nature film which featured a fake sequence of lemmings leaping into the ocean.
They can swim about 200 meters / 650 feet in calm water, but in choppy water (and not being adapted like some other furry Arctic animals), many will drown. Their path may be blocked by water, and if they can't find a way around it, they'll swim. The lemming population can decrease or increase dramatically, and when things get crowded, food becomes scarce, and the little critters migrate - looking for more space. The stories about lemmings, committing mass suicide by jumping off cliffs are not factual, even though this myth has become a metaphor for the behaviour of crowds of people who foolishly follow one another. Lemming Suicide - Fact or Myth? Athropolis HOME | Maps | Arctic Links | Arctic Libraryįrom our library of things you should know about the Arctic
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