It is hard to guess what a Leadbeater’s possum weights. But we have the answer:
An adult Leadbeater’s possum (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) on average weights 137 grams (0.3 lbs).
The Leadbeater’s possum is from the family Petauridae (genus: Gymnobelideus). They can live for up to 11 years. When reaching adult age, they grow up to 77.3 cm (2′ 7″). On average, Leadbeater’s possums can have babies 2 times per year with a litter size of 1.
As a reference: An average human weights in at 62 kg (137 lbs) and reaches an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″). Humans spend 280 days (40 weeks) in the womb of their mother and reach around 75 years of age.
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 in 1867 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.
Animals of the same family as a Leadbeater’s possum
We found other animals of the Petauridae family:
- Striped possum with a weight of 413 grams
- Long-fingered triok with a weight of 370 grams
- Sugar glider with a weight of 120 grams
- Mahogany glider with a weight of 361 grams
- Yellow-bellied glider with a weight of 568 grams
- Northern glider with a weight of 278 grams
- Tate’s triok with a weight of 252 grams
- Great-tailed triok with a size of 22.3 cm (0′ 9″)
- Squirrel glider with a weight of 230 grams
- Biak glider with a weight of 90 grams
Animals with the same weight as a Leadbeater’s possum
As a comparison, here are some other animals that weight as much as the Gymnobelideus leadbeateri:
- Siberian flying squirrel bringing 143 grams to the scale
- Mountain viscacha rat bringing 124 grams to the scale
- Littledale’s whistling rat bringing 126 grams to the scale
- Amazonian marsh rat bringing 120 grams to the scale
- Buettikofer’s epauletted fruit bat bringing 135 grams to the scale
- Broad-toothed mouse bringing 125 grams to the scale
- Zanzibar bushbaby bringing 148 grams to the scale
- Sugar glider bringing 120 grams to the scale
- Harris’s antelope squirrel bringing 127 grams to the scale
- Guianan spear-nosed bat bringing 134 grams to the scale
Animals with the same litter size as a Leadbeater’s possum
Here is a list of animals that have the same number of babies per litter (1) as a Leadbeater’s possum:
- Moustached guenon
- Sulawesi rousette
- Southern marsupial mole
- Natterer’s bat
- Red-tailed sportive lemur
- Common brushtail possum
- Rufous elephant shrew
- Four-toed elephant shrew
- Steenbok
- Klipspringer
Animals with the same life expectancy as a Leadbeater’s possum
Completely different animals, but becoming as old as a Leadbeater’s possum:
- Ground cuscus with an average maximal age of 12 years
- Squirrel glider with an average maximal age of 12 years
- American mink with an average maximal age of 10 years
- Western tree hyrax with an average maximal age of 10 years
- Black giant squirrel with an average maximal age of 10.08 years
- Whiskered bat with an average maximal age of 9.25 years
- Groundhog with an average maximal age of 10 years
- Brown palm civet with an average maximal age of 12 years
- Common dwarf mongoose with an average maximal age of 10.92 years
- Dice’s cottontail with an average maximal age of 9 years