Leadbeater's possum (
Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) is a critically endangered
possum largely restricted to small pockets of
alpine ash,
mountain ash and
snow gum forests in the
Central Highlands of
Victoria, Australia, north-east of Melbourne. It is
primitive,
relict, and non-gliding, and, as the only species in the
petaurid genus
Gymnobelideus, represents an ancestral form. 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. They also go by the common name of
fairy possum. On 2 March 1971, the State of Victoria made the Leadbeater's possum its
faunal emblem.