The habitat use of Small-toothed Ferret Badger in South-east Asia is unclear (e.g. Duckworth et al. 1999). Some certainly located records in Viet Nam and Lao PDR are from within little-degraded evergreen forest (Roberton 2007, Robichaud 2010, Abramov and Rozhnov 2014) but at least in Viet Nam ferret badgers of one or more species occur widely in degraded habitats as well. Given the use of farmland landscapes (with woodland copses) in China (e.g., Wang and Fuller 2003), such anthropogenic landscapes might be used in South-east Asia as well. In China it is also occupies broad-leaved forest (e.g., Zhou et al. 2008).

Small-toothed Ferret Badger is fossorial and lives in pre-existing holes (including rodent dens, firewood stacks, open fields, and rock piles around houses (Wang and Fuller 2003), rather than digging new ones (Taylor 1989). It is largely nocturnal (Wang and Fuller 2003) and feeds primarily on small animals such as insects, earthworms (Qian et al. 1976, Chuang and Lee 1997), snails, frogs, and sometimes carcases of small birds and mammals, eggs, and fruit (Chian and Sheng 1976, Long and Killingley 1983, Ewer 1985, Neal 1986, Chuang 1994). Resting home range size was found to be 10.6 ha (Wang and Fuller 2003).

Almost all pregnant females were found between March and October during a study on the reproduction of this species on Taiwan (Pei and Wang 1995). Litter size is two, and evidence suggests that it breeds once a year (Pei and Wang 1995). This species is often found near human habitations (Storz and Wozencraft 1999), taking shelter during the day, and earthworms (the most important part of its diet) are most abundant in the fertile vegetable gardens and farmland soils where this species frequently forages (Wang and Fuller 2003). It is also sometimes invited into native huts to exterminate cockroaches and other insects (Storz and Wozencraft 1999).

Small-toothed Ferret Badger is found in China (central and south-eastern mainland, Hainan and Hong Kong), Taiwan province of China, North-east India (e.g., Naga Hills), northern Myanmar, North and Central Lao PDR, and Viet Nam (Pocock 1941, Than Zaw et al. 2008, Lau et al. 2010, Robichaud 2010, Choudhury 2013, Abramov and Rozhnov 2014). Occurrence in a large area of Thailand was mapped by Storz and Wozencraft (1999), but Chutipong et al. (2014) could trace no record from the country. A major southward extension of known range in Viet Nam (Abramov and Rozhnov 2014) suggests that elsewhere in South-eat Asia, potentially including Thailand, it could also occur many degrees of latitude further south than is conventionally assumed. It is also likely to occur in southern Bhutan, because there is a record from Buxa Tiger Reserve just south of that country (Choudhury 2013) and there are ferret badger records unidentified to species from the country (e.g., Tempa et al. 2013).

In the wide region of sympatry with Large-toothed Ferret Badger M. personata (Myanmar, Lao PDR, Viet Nam, India, southern China, and potentially Thailand, Cambodia, and much of its mainland Chinese range), the continued rarity of use of reliable characters to identify records of ferret badgers to species (most recent potential records lack skulls or did not have the skull characters checked and were not preserved) hinder advances in understanding this species’s current distribution, status or ecology in these regions. It appears that, at least in eastern China, identification by examination of only the teeth may also be misleading (Stefen and Feiler 2004). Pelage characters are, so far as is presently known, unreliable in species-level identification (e.g., Choudhury 2013) so field records, including skin specimens lacking an associated skull, need to be considered as identifiable only to genus. Examination of the baculum in males also allows conclusive identification (Abramov and Rozhnov 2014) as, presumably, would genetics.

Most past statements about its altitudinal range are or may be based on identifications from pelage pattern, and thus potentially include some records of Large-toothed Ferret Badger. There are specimen-validated records from up to at least 1,500 m (Pocock 1941). At least in China it occurs down to sea-level.

This species is likely to occur in many protected areas across its range, specifically the northern part; the paucity of records from protected areas in the southern part, where it overlaps with Melogale personata (e.g., Nakai-Nam Theun NBCA, Lao PDR, Robichaud 2010; Chu Yang Sin National Park, Viet Nam, Abramov and Rozhnov 2014), perhaps signifies little other than the difficulties of confirming identification to species. In India, it is protected in Schuedule 2, Part 1. This species is listed as Near Threatened on the China Red List (Wang and Xie 2004).