The West Siberian lemming or Western Siberian brown lemming (''Lemmus sibiricus'') is a

true lemming The genus ''Lemmus'' contains several species of lemming sometimes referred to as the true lemmings. They are distributed throughout the Holarctic, particularly in the Palearctic. Description Head and body is 10-13.5 cm, and tail length is ...

species found in the

Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. Like other lemmings, it belongs to the Cricetidae family of

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are na ...

s. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to Russia, where it has a wide range throughout

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

, from the region just south of the

White Sea The White Sea (russian: Белое море, ''Béloye móre''; Karelian and fi, Vienanmeri, lit. Dvina Sea; yrk, Сэрако ямʼ, ''Serako yam'') is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is su ...

east all the way to the Verkhoyansk Range, which serves as a barrier between it and the

East Siberian lemming The East Siberian lemming, Eastern Siberian brown lemming, or Ognev's lemming (''Lemmus paulus'') is a species of lemming endemic to Russia, where it has a disjunct distribution throughout parts of Siberia east of the Verkhoyansk Range. Taxonom ...

(''L. paulus''), which was formerly considered conspecific with it. An insular population inhabits

Novaya Zemlya Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; rus, Но́вая Земля́, p=ˈnovəjə zʲɪmˈlʲa, ) is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, ...

; a 2021 study which performed genetic analysis on the mtDNA of the Novaya Zemlya population found them to group with the

Norway lemming The Norway lemming, also known as the Norwegian lemming (''Lemmus lemmus'') is a common species of lemming found in northern Fennoscandia, where it is the only vertebrate species endemic to the region. The Norway lemming dwells in tundra and fell ...

(''L. lemmus'') despite their similar appearance to mainland ''L. sibiricus'', and classified them as the subspecies ''L. l. chernovi'', or Novaya Zemlya lemming. However, the

American Society of Mammalogists The American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) was founded in 1919. Its primary purpose is to encourage the study of mammals, and professions studying them. There are over 4,500 members of this society, and they are primarily professional scientists ...

rejected these results pending further evidence, stating that these more likely represented ''L. sibiricus'' with ancient mitochondrial

introgression Introgression, also known as introgressive hybridization, in genetics is the transfer of genetic material from one species into the gene pool of another by the repeated backcrossing of an interspecific hybrid with one of its parent species. Intr ...

from ''L. lemmus'' (see the article for ''L. lemmus'' for further info). It does not hibernate during winter; it lives in burrows. It is prey to several animals, including the snowy owl and the Arctic fox. As with other species of lemmings, Siberian browns routinely experience large-scale fluctuations in their population sizes.

References

Further reading