Leadbeater's Possum
Gymnobelideus leadbeateri
- Critically endangered
- Card rarity: Legendary
- Mammals
Leadbeater's possum 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. In June 2025 it was reported that an image of a sole possum was recorded on a camera trap in October 2024 near Yarrangobilly Caves, Southern NSW, within the Kosciuszko National Park. 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.
Classification
- Class
- Mammalia
- Order
- Diprotodontia
- Family
- Petauridae
- Genus
- Gymnobelideus