Fears world’s smallest primate may have quietly gone extinct

Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur is found in forests in Madagascar threatened by slash-and-burn agriculture. © Matthias Markolf

The world's smallest primate, Madame Berthe's mouse lemur, may have gone extinct as large swathes of its forest home are cleared for crops, scientists studying the species in western Madagascar warn.

The lemur – which weighs little more than a dormouse when mature – was first discovered in 1992. But researchers monitoring the species in one of its strongholds haven’t seen one since 2018.