fff, people have been calling me a skunk for EVER. :C I feel your pain.

*hugs*

CHINESE FERRET BADGER FOR THE WIN!

well, I'm a Burmese (note the longer back stripe) but that's the closest LOL

OH!
YEAH
DURP

:3

<3333 FERRET BADGERS FOR THE WIN THO <3

People have always mistaken me for a fox. That may or may not result from my drawing ability. X) I feel your pain, though.

I always thought you looked like Aku the river spirit from SPIRITED AWAY (movie)...thus making it that I knew you were a dragon when I first saw your avatar

hehe I'm both..it's a little complicated :3 Oh, and that was Haku (The Kohaku river spirit) in Spirited Away

i thought you looked like a possum :3 like one of those ringtailed or bushtailed possums or something else related to a sugar glider (not the big fat american possum).

i had no idea what a "ferret badger" was until you posted that video.

When I first saw your character, I thought she was a ferret with interesting markings. So I wasn't THAT far off. XD

In my experience, furries in general don't tend to do a lot of research into animals, particularly the rarer ones. that's why you have so many of the well-known species: foxes (red), skunks (striped), rabbits, wolves (gray/timber), tigers (generic tiger), etc. When you toss them something they aren't familiar with, they just wildly grasp for something they KNOW that looks mildly similar. This is not aided by the prevalence of "stylized" art, i.e. cartoony drawings where the only way to even guess what species it is comes from the colors, which may or may not be accurate.
I have a piece of a Malagasy striped civet ('ware the girlparts: http://www.sidian.net/le%27shai.jpg) I had someone come up to me at a con and tell me how much they loved my hyena girl picture. It took me a minute to figure out what piece they meant, as I had never done a hyena at that point. I was confused.

I will admit to confusion and thinking maybe a possum was closest.

I think you'll get that with any rarer creature. XD

People always think my spotted skunk fursuit is a badger. o_o

Okay so not even just rarer ones..

MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW HOW TO RECOGNIZE ANIMALS. (Even most furries.)

When I first saw your artwork, I assumed that you had made up a new species, based yes on opossum but with a bushy tail. I had never heard of a Burmese badger before, but having now looked up some pictures you have the design spot-on. :)

I think it is a combination of the nose/muzzle, the hands, and the general build that made me think opossum. Still, it is very pretty. When I saw it, I was thinking "kudos on clever new animal design!" and now I'm thinking "kudos on good animal choice." The two aren't that far apart.