The rare U.S. short seller has gone extinct, according to scientists who could not find a single one of the mammals during an eight-week search on New York City's Wall Street.

"It's possible that we missed one or two mammals [during the search], but we can say the short seller is functionally extinct," Murray Bagholder, a Belgian economist-turned-scientist who financed the expedition, said in a telephone interview from Chicago.

One of the last known photos of a Wall St. short seller. Taken on April 9th, 2009 after the S&P 500 closed 3.5% higher.

"If there are any short sellers left in the street, they won't have any chance of survival."

If Bagholder's team is correct, the short seller will be the first large mammal to have gone extinct since hunting and overfishing wiped out the Caribbean monk seal in the 1950s.

Geithner, Goldman Sachs to Blame?

The delicate mammal, which dates back hundreds of years, was found only in New York City's Wall Street. Scientists say that tactics employed by the Obama administration, namely government intervention in the markets, are likely to blame.

Using high-tech optical instruments and radar on two research vehicles, an international team of 30 scientists and crew scoured the entire Financial District in New York City looking for the short seller. The team looked in every office building and coffee shop for any signs of the mammal, but was unable to find one.

"When we started, we were really optimistic about finding at least a few short sellers, but as each day went by it became increasingly clear that there are none left," Bagholder said.

The mammal's population had plummeted from about 1 million in late 2008 to less than 100 by April 2009.