Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons^™

Natural History Of The Southern Bog Lemming In Southeastern Virginia, Robert K. Rose

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The isolated subspecies of Southern Bog Lemming of southeastern Virginia, Synaptomys cooperi helaletes, has been studied extensively since its "rediscovery" in the Great Dismal Swamp in 1980. Multiple studies using pitfall traps, starting in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge and then extending elsewhere in southeastern Virginia and adjacent northeastern North Carolina, have revealed lemmings to be much more widespread and often more common than previously believed, with their presence now confirmed as far west as Surry and Sussex counties, about 30 km east of Petersburg, Virginia. When present, lemmings often are among the most numerous members of …