The lemming is a little arctic rodent, living mainly in tundra where it can build tunnels everywhere. The lemming is known to be quite prolific, and actually, lemmings have high reproductive rate. In case of overpopulation, lemmings tend to leave in every direction looking for food and shelter. That’s why lemming is considered as a suicidal animal. The truth about that strange behaviour is because lemmings have notoriously poor eyesight and cannot distinguish a small river, which they can easily cross, from a fjord, in which they will almost surely drown. Legends slightly exaggerate this behaviour characterize just a few animals and are strictly accidental. There are no mass suicidal tendencies in these cute lil’ rodents.

Impala is an antelopes-looking-like bovid. Like the antelopes, impalas live in African savannahs and its predators are lions, leopards and hyenas. It lives on flat areas, eats all forms of grass and drink very few. Males have lyre-shaped horns becoming an S-shape as they grow older. Impalas live in herds closer in winter than and wider in summer. Inside groups, respect is won by horn-fight between males. It’s interesting to know that black-faced impalas are considered threatened with extinction.

Belugas or white whales usually live in the Arctic Ocean but one can find few of them in the Saint Lawrence River and Saguenay River in Québec. It lives in big communities up to thousands animals. As an adult, its body is entirely white (when youngers’ is grey) and cylindrical when well-fed. It can be as long as 5 to 6 metres and can weigh one to two tons. Its flexible forehead is composed by a membrane in the shape of a bulb the beluga can inflate whenever it wants, giving so the impression that it can have several facial expressions (which is always a success in European aquariums). Beluga’s natural predators are bears and killer whale. When belugas are stuck in ice, bears knock them out and kill them on shore. Unfortunately, man stays the most dangerous predator of belugas. Hunting and pollution threatens the specie.

Australian marsupial eating mainly eucalyptus leaves (from where it gets its water since it doesn’t drink or do it rarely); the koala spends most of its time in trees. A female koala can produce one Joey (baby koala) which stays 6 month into the downward-facing pouch of its mother. Hunted for its fur before it became the Australian national emblem, it stays threatened by the destruction of its living area in Australia. On the other hand, in certain isles or part of the country, where they don’t have any predators, koalas can be a threat to the ecosystems.

Big rodent from European and North-American mountains.