The West Siberian brown lemming is a compact rodent with a short tail. It feeds on tundra plants and makes burrows in the ground or snow.
It has a stocky body, tawny-brown to cinnamon sides and back, a paler underside, small eyes and ears, and a short tail.
It eats tundra plants such as grasses, sedges, and mosses, and moves through runways and burrows beneath vegetation or snow.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.