Scientific research suggests that the White Lemuroid Possum native to Queensland’s Daintree rainforest may have become the first mammal to become extinct due to man-made global warming. The cute white furred possum (Hemibelideus lemuroids) has not been seen by researchers since 2005.

Professor Steve Williams, director of the Centre for Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change at James Cook University, said that the white lemuroid possum was identified as highly vulnerable five years ago.

“It only takes four or five hours of temperatures above 30C to kill this highly vulnerable species,” he said.

“They live off the moisture in the trees in the cooler, high-altitude cloud forests and, under extreme heat, they are unable to maintain their body temperature.”

He said record high temperatures in the summer of 2005 could have caused a massive die-off.

“Prior to 2005 we were seeing a lemuroid every 45 minutes of spotlighting at one main site at Mt Lewis,” Professor Williams said.

“But, in three years, in more than 20 hours of intensive spotlighting, none has been sighted.”

Favoring certain vegetation types that occur in the high canopies of the rainforest, the species has only ever been found above 500 meters and 1000 meters on the Atherton and Mount Carbine Tablelands, respectively.

Scientists believe that the disappearance of the possum is the most significant case of extinction since the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger.

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