I'm going to surmise that most therians, like furries, choose either animals that they admire, or that they identify with. In the case of the former, we tend to admire animals with qualities we wish we had, and in the case of the latter, we tend to focus more on the aspects of ourselves which we are most proud of. Either way, the identity of the therian is bigger and better than that of the person who conceived of it.Berserker wrote:Maybe somebody somewhere has already answered this. But how come there are so many foxes, wolves, bears, tigers, dragons, *insert other favorite animal here* within the therian community? Where are the giraffes, aardvarks, hippogryfs, and other more obscure animals? That's another thing which raises a red flag for me.
I can't speak for the therians, but I've noticed among furries that what few obscure animal fursonas are present were chosen just because they were so obscure. In the furry community, you can get away with stuff like that because it is a very creativity-driven community where you can choose a fursona for whatever reason you want, if any reason at all -- we might question your reasoning, but it's still your character to do whatever the hell you want with, and besides, fursona species are never final anyway.
Therians, on the other hand, I think tend to be more serious, so choosing an animal just for the sake of being different might betray the fact that they're using therianthropy as a means of social exclusion. It's true that a lot of people identify themselves as therians for just that reason, but none of them will ever admit it.