*Ø* Blogmanac | Lemming myth takes fall
"Scientists have solved one of the world's great mysteries. The reason lemmings suicidally hurl themselves over cliffs is that ... they don't.
"The myth arose because of sudden, severe falls in the population of the hamster-like rodent. Scientists have long been puzzled by the four-year cycle of boom and bust.
"But now researchers have pinned the blame on a quartet of Arctic predators: the arctic fox, the snowy owl, the stoat and the long-tailed skua.
"'It's been an unsolved question for 80 years,' Olivier Gilg, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, said.
Dr Gilg and his colleagues studied the collared lemming in Greenland's high Arctic tundra for 15 years and published their research in the journal Science this week.
"They found that when the lemming population increased, so did foxes, owls and skuas. The stoats took a year to catch up, because of slower reproduction.
"By the time they did, the number of predators feasting on the lemmings drove their numbers down. Then the foxes, skuas and owls moved on to other prey, but the stoats ate only lemmings and died away, starting the cycle again.
"Dr Gilg said the myth of mass suicide lay with an unlikely villain - Walt Disney. The 1958 Disney documentary White Wilderness is said to have faked footage of lemmings hurling themselves over the nearest cliff. 'If a Disney documentary presented it as lemming suicide, then it must have been true,' Dr Gilg said."
Source: The Australian
Thanx, Mister Peg for this one.
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Claim: During the filming of the 1958 Disney nature documentary White Wilderness, the film crew induced lemmings into jumping off a cliff and into the sea in order to document their supposedly suicidal behavior.
Status: True.
" ... Disney's White Wilderness was filmed in Alberta, Canada, which is not a native habitat for lemmings and has no outlet to the sea. Lemmings were imported for use in the film, purchased from Inuit children by the filmmakers. The Arctic rodents were placed on a snow-covered turntable and filmed from various angles to produce a "migration" sequence; afterwards, the helpless creatures were transported to a cliff overlooking a river and herded into the water."
Source: Urban Legends Reference Pages
"Scientists have solved one of the world's great mysteries. The reason lemmings suicidally hurl themselves over cliffs is that ... they don't.
"The myth arose because of sudden, severe falls in the population of the hamster-like rodent. Scientists have long been puzzled by the four-year cycle of boom and bust.
"But now researchers have pinned the blame on a quartet of Arctic predators: the arctic fox, the snowy owl, the stoat and the long-tailed skua.
"'It's been an unsolved question for 80 years,' Olivier Gilg, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, said.
Dr Gilg and his colleagues studied the collared lemming in Greenland's high Arctic tundra for 15 years and published their research in the journal Science this week.
"They found that when the lemming population increased, so did foxes, owls and skuas. The stoats took a year to catch up, because of slower reproduction.
"By the time they did, the number of predators feasting on the lemmings drove their numbers down. Then the foxes, skuas and owls moved on to other prey, but the stoats ate only lemmings and died away, starting the cycle again.
"Dr Gilg said the myth of mass suicide lay with an unlikely villain - Walt Disney. The 1958 Disney documentary White Wilderness is said to have faked footage of lemmings hurling themselves over the nearest cliff. 'If a Disney documentary presented it as lemming suicide, then it must have been true,' Dr Gilg said."
Source: The Australian
Thanx, Mister Peg for this one.
Claim: During the filming of the 1958 Disney nature documentary White Wilderness, the film crew induced lemmings into jumping off a cliff and into the sea in order to document their supposedly suicidal behavior.
Status: True.
" ... Disney's White Wilderness was filmed in Alberta, Canada, which is not a native habitat for lemmings and has no outlet to the sea. Lemmings were imported for use in the film, purchased from Inuit children by the filmmakers. The Arctic rodents were placed on a snow-covered turntable and filmed from various angles to produce a "migration" sequence; afterwards, the helpless creatures were transported to a cliff overlooking a river and herded into the water."
Source: Urban Legends Reference Pages
Pip Wilson posted item above at 10:54 PM | Permalink
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