The northern spotted-tail quoll is close to becoming critically endangered, with fewer than 250 remaining in a handful of small and declining populations.
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Researchers from the James Cook and Sunshine Coast universities have set out to learn how many of the native marsupials are left in the wild.
Using remote camera traps deployed across the mountains of the central and northern Wet Tropics region, scientists fear north Queensland's endangered northern spotted-tail quoll population has fallen to an alarming low.
"The north Queensland subspecies of the spotted-tailed quoll is only found in six mountainous areas, all in the Wet Tropics, and it's very rarely seen," James Cook University associate professor Conrad Hoskin said.
The study, published in the journal Austral Ecology, estimated a total population of about 221.
"This project involved many days of rainforest trekking while deploying and collecting camera traps," its lead author and University of Sunshine Coast masters graduate Jesse Rowland said.
"We built a catalogue of images of individual quolls, using their spot patterns, and then went through all the photos to see which quolls have visited each camera - that gave us the data we needed to estimate the population size and demographic."
The populations range from about five adults in the smallest group to about 105 adults in the largest.
Researchers found that the three populations located in the Daintree region are relatively stable.
However, numbers in the southern groups of the Atherton Tablelands region are so low that scientists fear those populations may disappear.
"Our estimate is half a previous estimate of over 500 quolls, made about 25 years ago," Mr Rowland said.
"These new results are very much cause for concern, and we suggest the status of the subspecies should be elevated to critically endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act."
Professor Conrad Hoskin said the small size and isolation of the remaining populations also compound the extinction risk.
"When populations become this small, inbreeding can become an issue that threatens the short and longer-term survival of the species," he said.
"We need to work out the genetics of the remaining populations and factor that into conservation decisions moving forward."
Australian Associated Press
