 Lemming This rodent is related to the mouse. The brown or common lemming (genus Lemmus) lives in Arctic regions of both hemispheres. The fir is long and is brownish, grayish, or black throughout the most of year. In Scandinavia particularly, the lemmings undergo a mass migrations during periods of over population and food scarcity, swarming over land and through water, deterred by nothing, and eating vegetation on the way.
If they reach the sea before the migratory urge subsides, they swim far out until they drown. Migrations in America are less intensive and less frequent. The Collared lending (Dicrostonyx), turns white in winter, also has a circumpolar range. The lending mouse (Synaptomys) of North America is not a true lemming but a related form of which a species known as the bog lemming is found as far south as North East United States. |
