Mammals: people too.

Here's a cute bunny. Or is it a duck?

The picture demonstrates the basis for  the principle of anthropomorphism, the assigning of human characteristics to animals and the preference of humans for animals that share human characteristics in appearance or behavior. In other words, we like animals that look like or behave like humans, specifically very young or infantile humans.

Our instincts deem us to like the physical characteristics of the infant so that we become ample caretakers to the young children. Appealing to us is the bulging forehead, the small snout, the receding or weak chin, and the large eyes of the infant child. The opposite of that is demonstrated in the profile of the adult. The unappealing, aggressive, and even repellent features of the adult profile are the sloping forehead, the large snout, the protruding chin, and the relatively small eyes.

Notice the same in the pictures of the young of the dog and cat and even some birds, in this case the pigeon or dove. The shape of the head changes as the animal matures, very similar to the human infant. Even our preferences for the types of birds demonstrates this. On the left is a pigeon with a bulging forehead and a very small snout. The bird on the right, perhaps a crow, has a large snout and an aggressive, sloping forehead. The soft, cooling sounds of a dove or pigeon in sharp contrast to the raucous cawing of the crow only reinforce our preferences for the infant-like doves. We quickly bond with the kitten or the puppy to a great extent because of the shape of their heads. In a few short months the puppy or kitten has grown into a less appealing adult and it's too late for us, we already love them.

In the above picture you see the various stages in the human life drawn in proportion to each other. Most noticeable is the very large head of the infant and it's short limbs especially the legs. Of course the upright posture is a given. The same characteristics are what we find appealing in animals, anthropomorphically, and this factor has been exploited by the media in cartoons and comics strips.

Think of ET. Enormous head, virtually no legs, and no snout, all features guaranteed to make us feel non threatened by an alien that for all intents and purposes looked like an infant. There are other examples, Casper the Friendly Ghost, had no legs at all that I remember, and no facial features, just a head indistinguishable from the rest of the body and large eyes.

One off the best examples is Mickey Mouse himself. He started off more mouse-like with long spindly legs, long pointy nose or snout, and a small head. He evolved to become more human-like or infant-like with a large head, limbs covered with clothing to hide the spindly legs and arms. All in all less wild and more domesticated.

Bipedalism in animals-natural or not--is always appealing to us. it implies domesticity opposed to wildness. The human on one end; the snake on the other.


Mongooses not so much, unless they're meerkats.

Of course most birds are bipedal, but that doesn't count unless they're penguin.

The shape of the face is important to us too. We're drawn to the animal with a face that resembles us, more or less, a somewhat flat face with the eyes in the front. And it's not the disposition of the animal that's important to us, since many of the animals that we're drawn to are predators, canines and felines. Compare the picture of the lion, a dangerous predator, and the Emory's rat snake, also a predator, but with such a mild disposition that it can be picked up in the wild without biting. Yet, it's the lion that we love and the snake that we hate.

The appeal of faces and big eyes applies to animals other than mammals, for instance this jumping spider.

Extreme anthropomorphism.

People pay good money to see shite like this.

Sometimes, it does have its charm.

Red fox snow diving for mice, possibly using the magnetic field to locate the mice.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D2SoGHFM18I