Climate change has claimed its first mammalian species, according to a new report by Australian scientists.

Researchers from Australia's University of Queensland and Queensland Government say a rodent, known as the Bramble Cay melomys, which lived on Bramble Cay, a small sandy island in the Great Barrier Reef, has died out due to "rising sea levels and an increased incidence of extreme weather events," the first mammal on record to be declared extinct "due solely (or primarily) to anthropogenic climate change."

The scientists exhaustively combed the beach of the animal's only known habitat in 2014 but failed to "find any trace of the rodent."

"A thorough survey effort involving 900 small animal trap-nights, 60 camera trap-nights and two hours of active daytime searches produced no records of the species, confirming that the only known population of this rodent is now extinct," Luke Leung, one of the co-authors of the report, said in a press release.

While the researchers were certain the animals were washed away from their only known home, they did observe the "possibility that the species occurs elsewhere on islands in the Torres Strait," an area between Australia and Papua New Guinea comprised of more than 200 islands.

Jamie Carr, coordinator of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Global Species Programme’s Climate Change Unit, told weather.com in a phone interview that while he didn't doubt the Australian research team's work, the IUCN could not officially declare the mammal extinct before a more extensive search and consulting with more experts. 

"What we can say is it is highly likely it has gone extinct, but we are not in a position to declare it extinct," Carr said. "From our point of view, the official statement that we're going with is that it's very likely that it has."

Carr noted that the scientists's uncertainty that the animal could still be living in the Torres Strait gave them pause before announcing the extinction in their annual IUCN Red List, the world's most comprehensive assessment on conservation status, which is due to come out next week.

"That's the deciding factor before IUCN declares the animal extinct," he added.

Carr was also careful to note that other extinctions blamed on climate change had other factors which contributed to their disappearance.

"What you'll find if you look for species that have gone extinct -- almost all of them have had other threats that are working at the same time or in synergy like habitat loss," he noted. "We dont take extinction lightly, we need more research."

"I think one has to be cautious claiming it's the first (due to climate change), but it's certainly an alarming story," Pimm told weather.com in a phone interview. "It looks as if climate change is the culprit but it's tragically not unexpected, there are a lot of species vulnerable to the wide range of factors attributed to climate change, species that are very close to sea level are very much at risk to what we're doing to the climate."

Pimm also observed that the report should be worrisome for people living in low-lying atolls in the Pacific Ocean.

"Any time we are driving species to extinction, we are disrupting the world environment — that won't just disrupt species but people too," Pimm said. "When you drive a species to extinction, we are destroying something. That has to be a worry that there is no historical precedent for this and that we're doing something to the global environment."

"It's not just a little mouse, it's an island ecosystem that's at risk," he added.