The Australian government this week formally recognized the extinction of a small rodent native to the northern area of the Great Barrier Reef, marking the first known case of mammalian extinction caused by human-induced climate change.

The Bramble Cay melomys, roughly 14-16 centimeters in length, was found only on Bramble Cay, a small coral island just 340 meters long and 150 meters wide in the Torres Strait, between the northern Australian state of Queensland and Papua New Guinea.

[Photo courtesy of Ian Bell and the University of Queensland]

After the Queensland state government declared the species extinct in the wild in 2016, its status was quietly changed from "endangered" to "extinct" on a list at the bottom of a statement released by Environment Minister Melissa Price on Monday.

With the cay only about 3 meters above sea level, the rat-like rodent was left vulnerable to storm surges and rising sea levels, according to Luke Leung, an academic who co-wrote a report with the Queensland state government confirming the rodent's extinction.

"It was the only vertebrate stuck on the island, it could not fly away like the birds which nest there," he said, noting that salt water inundation also killed off much of the rodent's food sources and deprived it of shelters.

"There's always a risk of storm surges in any low-lying islands, but climate change has made this more intense and frequent so the risk is heightened and the species went extinct."

Leung's research found the last known sighting of the Bramble Cay melomys, the only mammal species native to the Great Barrier Reef, was in late 2009.

The researcher said the broader ecosystem of Bramble Cay, including birds and turtles that use the island as a nesting area does not appear to be affected by the loss of the rodent.