Lemming
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Lemming
Mammal
A small, boldly-marked Arctic rodent whose numbers rise and crash in dramatic cycles every few years — the source of the long-disproved myth that lemmings deliberately leap to their deaths.
Name Story
Lemmus lemmus
means “the lemming — a name carried straight down from the Scandinavian mountains”
a traditional story'Lemming' comes from the Norwegian/Scandinavian name for the animal, which scientists simply Latinised; its deeper origin is uncertain, so we don't claim a hidden meaning for it.
What does its name mean?
- Lemmus — lemming — a Latinised form of the old Scandinavian name for the animala Norwegian/Scandinavian word for the creature
- lemmus — the same word a second time — marking this as the 'type' lemmingLatin, repeating the genus name
Not every scientific name hides a clever meaning. 'Lemming' is simply the old Scandinavian name for this little animal, carried down from the mountains of Norway and tidied into Latin by scientists — so its name really just means 'lemming', said twice over.