“I hope it spurs politicians and governments to understand the consequences of climate change,” he said.

Senior research scientist at the Australian Museum Andrew Mitchell said the moths played a vital role in the ecosystem, feeding on many plants and providing a food source for countless animals in the alpine region.

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“They are a pretty crucial part of the ecosystem. If you take them out, it has to have a knock-on effect for everyone,” he said.

Dr Mitchell added he hoped the Red List report would feed into federal and state conservation regulation, with newly added animals possibly getting better protection.

Since colonisation, about 100 of Australia’s unique flora and fauna species have been wiped off the planet, including 34 mammals. The rate of loss, which is as comprehensive as anywhere else on Earth, has not slowed over the past 200 years.

ANU ecologist professor David Lindenmayer said there was a greater need for investing in the conservation of Australia’s ecosystems.

“We have dropped the ball on environmental management, biodiversity conservation, research and monitoring,” he said. “Our list is going to get longer and longer [unless we do something] and we are going to see more and more species more and more threatened as time goes on.”

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Professor Lindenmayer added that animals could often deal with one external pressure on their habitats, but were contending with a combination of threats.

“Because the climate is changing so quickly, the interventions needed to conserve more and more animals are critical,” he said. “If you have one thing going wrong in life once, it’s hard – if you have two things, it’s a nightmare. If you have three things, it’s impossible and that is what we are asking biodiversity to deal with.”

The Australian Conservation Foundation’s nature campaigner Jess Abrahams said Australia had a poor record when it came to species extinctions, with the group urging the federal government to introduce legally binding standards to national environment law.

A spokesman for federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley said the government had supported the analysis of the 2019 to 2020 bushfires on native plants and animals, which included the bogong moth, and this had been used by the IUCN. He added that part of a $200 million bushfire recovery effort was going towards regenerating moth habitats in the alpine regions.

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