Leadbeater's Possum

Leadbeater's possum (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) is an endangered possum restricted to small pockets of remaining old growth mountain ash forests in the central highlands of Victoria (Australia) north-east of Melbourne. It is a primitive, relict, non-gliding petaurid and, as the only species in the Gymnobelideus genus, represents an ancestral species. Formerly, Leadbeater's possums were moderately common within the very small areas they inhabited: their requirement for year-round food supplies and tree-holes to take refuge in during the day restricts them to mixed-age wet sclerophyll forest with a dense mid-story of Acacia. The species was named after John Leadbeater the then taxidermist at the Museum of Victoria. They also go by the common name of fairy possum.

In 1968, the State of Victoria made Leadbeater's possum its faunal emblem.