

The truth about Norwegian lemmings - schrofer
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141122-the-truth-about-lemmings

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smackay
Nice photos but low on detail. Here's a more interesting account of Myodes
lemmus from August 1877 edition of Popular Science:

[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume...](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_11/August_1877/The_Norwegian_Lemming_and_its_Migrations)

To give you an idea of just how massive these population explosions are here
is an excerpt from the article:

"Mr. R. Collett, a Norwegian naturalist, writes that in November, 1868, a ship
sailed for fifteen hours through a swarm of lemmings, which extended as far
over the Trondhjems-fjord as the eye could reach."

The 3-5 year cycles drive the whole arctic ecosystem. When there are lots of
lemmings there are lots of everything. More lemmings means more food for
predators so tundra-nesting birds do really well, fledging lots of chicks
since the predators can stuff themselves senseless with lemmings. In years
with low numbers of lemmings then the birds get hammered hard until the number
of predators crashes also.

~~~
Someone
But given the claims of this article, can that source be trusted? I tried to
dig deeper, found zillions of copies of that quote and
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1096-3642.1877....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1096-3642.1877.tb01388.x/full),
very likely Collett's article, but behind a paywall, where I have to register
to even see the price of the article.

Also, that 'fifteen hours' doesn't say much. Speeds of sailing ships differ a
lot, depending on the ship, wind direction relative to ship direction, and, of
course, the density of the lemmings in the water. The fjors is about 130km
long, though, and the eye would reach (depending on height above sea level and
weather) around 10km.

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teddyh
“ _Tweetable truths about Norwegian lemmings_ […]”

What? Pre-made tweets? I see. It’s not enough to make up hashtags for people
to create trends with, nowadays you have to _write the entire tweet for them_.

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oblio
The morals of the 50's seem to be a bit different than those of the 2000's...

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alextgordon
The real revelation is that I can read this bbc.com article. Apparently
they've stopped blocking British people!

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idid
a real eye-opener. was planning to use lemmings in a startup demolition
company, but now i know they won't do. will have to get back to the drawing
board...

