Collared lemming records concentrate on Alaska’s North Slope, with more scattered through Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, open tundra country north of the Brooks Range. It’s the only rodent native to North America that turns solid white for winter, and the double, shovel-like claws it grows on each front foot are unique among the tundra’s lemmings and voles.
Through the brief Arctic summer, collared lemmings graze low tundra plants, mostly grasses and sedges, staying active mainly at night even though Alaska’s summer daylight barely dims. Once winter locks the surface in ice, those oversized claws let it tunnel down to buried vegetation that would otherwise sit out of reach.
Reports run in a short pulse from June through August and drop off almost entirely the rest of the year. That gap tracks the brief summer window that opens the tundra to researchers and observers, not a population that vanishes each winter.
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