animal are rarely bang for their self-destructive tendencies . Perhaps because when your everyday thought pattern is limited to eat - sleep - defecate , there ’s no clock time for existential exegesis or speculate the futility of animation . That is , except for the lemming — a small , furred , gerbille - similar rodent that has come to be defined by its alleged tendency to mindlessly down itself by jump off of cliffs . However , the long - subsist myth in reality has its roots in Hollywood trickery .
Populations of lemming fluctuate dramatically , from monolithic herd to near extinction . For years , theories on these populace prime and plummets motley from the supernatural to the absurd . Asreported by ABC News in 2004 :
That was before the modern meaning gained traction : That population tumbled because coterie of lemmings would from time to time run head - first off of cliffs , plunge to their ego - induce death for no apparent reason . To refer to an mortal as a lemming thus became synonymous with calling them a follower of a with child group – a community on an unthinking path towards mass destruction .
However , this does a disservice to these cuddly hamster - lookalikes .
It turns out that there is no proof that an assemblage of wild lemmings would really drive themselves off of a cliff at all , but ratherthe myth was perpetuate by a 1958 Disney documentary calledWhite Wilderness , in which the filmmakers manually ran a pack of lemmings off of a drop to make for good video . The staged self-destruction turned out to be a decisive succeeder , as the movie went on to make headway the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature . See a cartridge holder of the film below .
During the cliff - dive sequence , the air pocket - sized creatures cascade into flimsy air , tumble backward and flail their Lilliputian limbs a la Mufasa inThe Lion King , before they land with a distinctive splatter in the Arctic Sea . The survivers then swim deeper into the vast trunk of urine , where the storyteller conjecture they will shortly overwhelm .
SinceWhite Wilderness , this erroneous misnomer has finagled its way into the present - day lexicon , including being referenced in a2008 US Senate campaign ad , as well as a song byBlink-182 .
While a definitive account for the waxing and wan lemming communities remains nameless , recent guess suggests their explosive annihilation can be attributed to the variety of predators they appeal , includingthe stoat — a short - tailed weasel that ’s even open of hunt lemming beneath wintertime Baron Snow of Leicester bed .
As the teller of the docudrama , Winston Hibler , paint a picture : " In this land of many whodunit , it ’s a foreign fact that the declamatory legends seem to collect around the smallest creature . "
