14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers with the Swedish Museum of Natural History (SMNH), led by associate professor Love Dalén, determined in a new investigation that the famous Norwegian lemming is in fact its own ancestor. Before this study, scientists believed that the diminutive creature died off during the last Ice Age, but new evidence appears to suggest it most certainly did not.
Genetic evidence uncovered in the new study points at a scenario where these lemmings survived in the northernmost regions of Fennoscandia, a region that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula, Finland, Karelia, and the Kola Peninsula. The creature was apparently able to do so by moving northwards, after becoming separated from the rest of the world through a massive ice field.
In a paper published in this week's issue of the journal Molecular Ecology, the team explains that Norwegian lemmings did not evolve from other species of lemmings, as previously suggested. Rather, the creatures simply returned to Scandinavia and the surrounding areas once the ices cleared. These data are based on DNA analyses of multiple lemming species, PhysOrg reports.
The research suggests that none of these species is an ancestor for the Norwegian lemming. “We found that even though the populations surrounding the ice sheet were closely related to modern day lemmings, none of them were similar enough to be the direct ancestor of the Norwegian lemming,” explains Dalén. At this point, scientists do not know where exactly this lemming population endured the Ice Age.