Lemming

Lemmings are pretty small rodents. They are very similar to a guinea pig or a hamster. Lemmings are around 13-18 cm in length and their mass is around 23-34g. They are very good burrorwers due to their small bodies and their flattened claw on the front of their paws.

Lemmings are herbivores. Their diet consists of grasses and other small plants such as sedges, which are very tiny plants that grow on the blades of small grasses. These sedges are normally found in wetlands with places with very tall grass.

Lemmings, like other rodents, have population booms. These are certain periods where they all get together and mate. After that, Lemmings all scatter around the landscape and live in their own areas. Lemmings can have hundreds of young at one time that their population over grows. When their population grows too rapidly, lemmings find new areas to populate.

There is a common misconception of these small rodents that their commit mass suicide and explode. People believed this was true because sometimes their population flucates so rapidly. According to researchers, lemmings need the right kind of environment to really thrive and reproduce. Another misconception is that lemmings are known to explode when they get too angry. That is also not true because no one has ever seen one explode. When their population grows, lemmings go out and feed on all the vegeitation in an area. This is a great chance for predators to go and hunt on the inncoent lemmings. Their predators, such as ravens, will attack them swiftly but not eat them. So when environmentalists go around, they notice all the dead lemmings. This lead people to believe that lemmings explode.