Do Lemmings really jump off of cliffs to their death?
It is a fallacy that lemmings commit mass suicide during migration. They do migrate in large groups when population density becomes too great. Lemmings can swim and will often choose to cross a body of water in search of a new habitat. On occasion, the lemmings are pushed into the sea by the pressure of more lemmings arriviving on the cliff-top or shoreline. Sometimes (particularly in the case of Norwegian lemmings) large migrating groups will reach a cliff overlooking the sea. They will stop until the urge to continue forces them to jump off the cliff and start swimming, sometimes the distance is too far, resulting in exhaustion and subsequent death.
