- Australia on February 19, 2019 officially declared rat-like Bramble Cay Melomys extinct, making it the first mammal believed to have been killed off by human-induced climate change.
- Australia’s Environment Ministry announced that it had officially transferred the animal to the “extinct” list.
- The rat-like Bramble Cay Melomys — whose only known habitat was a small sandy island in far northern Australia — has not been spotted in a decade.
- The Bramble Cay melomys inhabited a small coral island on the Great Barrier Reef, measuring about five hectares (12 acres) and located in the Torres Strait, between Queensland state and Papua New Guinea.
- According to a report published by the University of Queensland in 2016, the mammal had not been seen for almost 10 years and was initially pronounced extinct after “exhaustive” conservation efforts failed .
- Researchers determined a key factor in its disappearance was “almost certainly” repeated ocean inundation of the cay — a low-lying island on a coral reef — over the last decade, which had resulted in dramatic habitat loss.
- The Melomys rubicola, considered the Great Barrier Reef’s only endemic mammal species, was first discovered on the cay in 1845 by Europeans who shot the “large rats” for sport.
