Lemmings myth debunked once and for all

[dArKeR]

Scientists have known for years that the small rodents don't throw themselves off cliffs, but have only now discovered what sparks their weird boom-and-bust cycles

For centuries, people have puzzled over lemmings, the northern rodents whose populations surge and crash so quickly and so regularly that they inspired an enduring myth: that lemmings commit mass suicide when their numbers grow too large, eagerly pitching themselves off cliffs to their deaths in a foamy sea.

Scientists debunked that notion decades ago. But they have never been certain what causes the rapid boom-and-bust cycles that gave rise to it. Now, in a study of collared lemmings in Greenland, published on Friday in the journal Science, a team of European researchers reported that the real reason has nothing to do with self-annihilation and everything to do with hungry predators.

After 15 years of research, the scientists report, they discovered that the combined actions of four predator species -- snowy owls, seabirds called long-tailed skuas, arctic foxes and weasel-like creatures known as stoats -- create the four-year cycles during which lemming populations explode and then nearly disappear.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/11/02/2003074303