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.[3] It is 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 Victoria.[4] They also go by the common name of fairy possum.[5]
In 1968, the State of Victoria made the Leadbeater's possum its faunal emblem.[6]