How to spot a suicidal lemming
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
I was sitting in the Hibernian pub in Selly Park, Birmingham, with a good friend of mine and in the course of a normal conversation we came onto the subject of lemmings. These small Arctic rodents, brown-coloured in summer, white in winter, are legendary for their mass migrations when food is scarce and are reputed to leap off cliffs and drown in vast numbers. This kamikaze approach is quite unusual in the animal kingdom, and it set me thinking as to how one could spot a truly suicidal lemming.
Clearly, if all lemmings have the tendency to plummet down precipices to their doom, they must be inherently suicidal, and this would make a lemming psychologist's job rather difficult. How could one distinguish between a normally suicidal lemming and a really suicidal one? As any good scientist would, I have devised an experiment, as follows:
1. Place your lemming in a small cage.
2. In front of the cage build a simple maze in the shape of a T-junction
3. At the end of both left and right turns, place a large cliff above a sizeable body of water
4. For one turn, place some succulent plants and berries in front of the cliff edge
5. For the other turn, place a vicious, snarling cat behind a glass panel, again in front of the cliff edge
6. Release the lemming
7. Normal lemmings will eat first, then jump off the cliff when food runs out
8. Suicidal lemmings will head straight for the vicious predator
Thus, another important and pressing issue in evolutionary biology can be quickly solved.
Clearly, if all lemmings have the tendency to plummet down precipices to their doom, they must be inherently suicidal, and this would make a lemming psychologist's job rather difficult. How could one distinguish between a normally suicidal lemming and a really suicidal one? As any good scientist would, I have devised an experiment, as follows:
1. Place your lemming in a small cage.
2. In front of the cage build a simple maze in the shape of a T-junction
3. At the end of both left and right turns, place a large cliff above a sizeable body of water
4. For one turn, place some succulent plants and berries in front of the cliff edge
5. For the other turn, place a vicious, snarling cat behind a glass panel, again in front of the cliff edge
6. Release the lemming
7. Normal lemmings will eat first, then jump off the cliff when food runs out
8. Suicidal lemmings will head straight for the vicious predator
Thus, another important and pressing issue in evolutionary biology can be quickly solved.
