Many animals have gone viral on social media, such as Moo Deng the Pygmy hippopotamus, and Pesto the baby king penguin, from Melbourne.
The latest creature to generate a social media storm is the deep-sea female anglerfish that was filmed near the ocean's surface off the coast of Tenerife, which later died. Plenty of tributes poured in for the fish – including an AI-generated Pixar-style story that was posted on TikTok. But despite its odd-looking appearance, many were surprised at just how small (and cute) the anglerfish was. As Jo Wimpenny explains, there's plenty of science behind why we find animals 'cute' – and how it could ultimately save them when it comes to conservation...
Survival of the cutest
Think of the BBC series Big Cats and the rusty-spotted cat might spring to mind, a kitten-sized felid whose prowess for murder did nothing to detract from his ridiculously adorable appearance.
The little predator captured hearts worldwide, and a two-minute video of him on YouTube now has more than 63 million views. A quick skim of the 83,000 comments reveals a common theme.
“This is literally the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” says one. “I want to get this little kitty… sooooo cute,” writes another.
- Who is the real Paddington Bear? Meet the heartwarming bears of South America's cloud forests, who inspired a fictional icon
- What are NFTs and can they help wildlife conservation?
His large eyes, round face and petite size are all key traits of what we perceive as cute, and while they’re typically associated with baby animals, they needn’t be restricted to the natural world. Hello Kitty, Japan’s monumentally successful global ambassador of cuteness, is one of the most recognisable characters on the planet. She’s also just celebrated her 50th birthday, a testament to the enduring popularity of all things adorable. But what does this have to do with wildlife conservation? Quite a lot, as it turns out.
Survival of the cutest
In his 1990 art installation, Survival of the Cutest (Who Gets on the Ark?), artist Mark Dion, in collaboration with William Schefferine, crammed a wheelbarrow with cuddly toys, including a panda, orca, polar bear and elephant, as well as other ‘charismatic megafauna’. Painted on the wheelbarrow was a list of species and their extinction rates. The message was clear – to be considered worthy of conservation efforts, animals needed to be charismatic or cute.
This bias is well-documented in the conservation world. Charismatic megafauna – typically, large, attractive mammals – dominate conservation priorities, to the frustration of all trying to protect a broader swathe of the animal kingdom. Research confirms it: aesthetically appealing animals such as tigers, elephants and snow leopards receive higher charitable donations, greater advocacy and more public empathy than their ‘unattractive’ counterparts. Some scientists have warned that this could lead to a future where unattractive species are selectively driven to extinction by human aesthetic preferences.
Our rational brains may say that the most endangered species should receive the greatest protection, but in reality we’re more often driven by emotions than logic. And cute creatures spark our emotions in a way that plainer animals can’t hope to achieve. Take the contrasting fates of the giant panda and the Yangtze river dolphin (baiji), for example. Both were large mammals living in China but in 2006, while the public were donating millions of pounds to save the panda, few knew that the baiji had quietly slipped out of existence. Human activity was to blame, but in a 2009 interview with The Guardian, naturalist and presenter Chris Packham pulled no punches when he said that the baiji also vanished “because it was pig-ugly”. If it had been beautiful, he said, “I doubt very much that it would be extinct.”
- 10 cutest animals in the world - and some of these adorable creatures may surprise you
- Adorable leaf sheep filmed mooching around reef in Indonesia is so cute you won’t believe it’s real
The science behind 'cuteness'
In many ways, it’s not our fault as we are biologically predisposed to favour aesthetics. Extensive research finds that we attribute more positive character traits to attractive people (known as the beauty-is-good stereotype), and the same is true for animals. Cuteness throws something even more compelling into the mix, because cute things remind us of our own babies. Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz introduced a concept known as ‘baby schema’ in the 1940s, suggesting that certain physical features – including large heads, big eyes and chubby cheeks – trigger innate feelings of affection and the protective urge to provide care.
Much research has been conducted since that supports Lorenz’s theory. Studies show that seeing an infant face triggers a surge of activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, a brain area associated with rewards, within just 0.13 seconds. Hormones are also released, including dopamine and oxytocin, which promote feelings of affection and attachment. And while it might seem obvious that we feel an urge to provide care, it wasn’t until 2009 that the link to baby schema was backed up by robust experimental evidence: when photos of infant faces were modified to be higher or lower on baby schema traits, adults not only judged the higher-ranking faces as the cutest, they also reported the strongest motivation to care for them.
Animal faces elicit the same physiological and psychological responses. Dog and cat faces manipulated for high baby schema are rated as cuter than unedited images, and some studies have found that baby animals are rated as cuter than human infants.
From cuteness to conservation
But can these insights be leveraged for conservation? Hello Kitty has stood the test of time for five decades, an achievement that ultimately comes down to extremely effective marketing. For some researchers, biodiversity conservation is missing a trick by not making use of the same tools.
“Marketing gets a lot of stick,” says Diogo Veríssimo, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford. “But arguably people are the key thing to get right in conservation.” Veríssimo was inspired to merge these interests during his biology degree, when part-time work at the local zoo revealed the lack of evidence-base behind their educational programmes. “There was no data, and there was no science. We were all just hoping for the best, and that struck me as quite strange,” he says.
Veríssimo is on a mission to reframe what marketing means in the context of conservation, arguing that its tools and theory offer untapped potential to drive effective, conservation-related behaviour change. His work has explored the role of species charisma in conservation initiatives, and he has recommended systematic ways to identify conservation flagships, and investigated how to strategically leverage celebrity endorsements to promote conservation behaviour.
While human choices can be complex and unpredictable, sometimes they’re governed by surprisingly simple factors. In an analysis of the EDGE (Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered) programme’s website, Veríssimo and colleagues found that a species’ aesthetic appeal, its order of listing, and whether it was an EDGE focal species were the most important predictors of donations. In other words, two of the key factors were how the species was marketed, rather than an aspect of its biology.
Adjusting the marketing could lead to huge differences in public donations. The researchers estimated that by simply moving an unappealing species to the first page, for example, the number of donors could be increased up to 26 times. Similarly, in a study (by a different team) of more than 10,000 people adopting animals at the Paris Zoological Park, charisma and alphabetical order of listing predicted the number of adoptions more than conservation status. Aramis, a jaguar listed at the top, received 1,479 adoptions, while Zyko, an arapaima listed at the bottom, received just 26.
In a recent study, Veríssimo analysed the impact of cuteness on donations. Volunteers were asked to allocate hypothetical money to photographs of endangered species – the numbat, kākāpō, purple frog, Indian pangolin and aye-aye – before and after the images had been digitally ‘cutified’. Compared with the originals, the cuter versions all had bigger and more forward-facing eyes and, depending on the species, were also brighter, more smoothly furred or declawed (or de-fingered in the case of the aye-aye).
The edited versions were confirmed to be cuter by participants, and also received higher donations. “We were able to isolate aesthetics as the driving factor for increased willingness to donate,” Veríssimo says. “That’s not saying it’s the only factor,” he adds, “but we showed that the effect is real.” Veríssimo used the results to argue that mammals and birds are prioritised in conservation because of a beauty, rather than a taxonomic, bias.
- 10 cutest prehistoric animals, including an adorable 3-foot dwarf elephant you will want to take home with you
- 5 venomous mammals, including some cuties whose innocent looks hide their deadly streak
Cuteness and marketing
Conservation NGOs are no strangers to marketing, but is cuteness an important consideration when it comes to their choice of campaign animal? “Cuteness is important,” says Holly McKinlay, director of strategic communications and brand at the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF). “People respond to it because they can see a vulnerability in other animals, and they relate to that.” Nonetheless, she emphasises that, as a science-based organisation, WWF imagery is more about depicting the true nature of the animal, rather than it looking cute.
When it comes to WWF’s research, McKinlay says they don’t look at attractiveness or cuteness, because these are concepts that can be defined in different ways and, as she reminds me, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” She says that recent campaigns with pangolins and walruses, neither of which are traditionally thought of as attractive animals, have been some of their most successful, “because they highlighted something out of the ordinary. It comes back to vulnerability. Cuteness aside, successful imagery involves a vulnerable species and a story to tell.”
The giant panda, WWF’s iconic symbol, was launched in 1961 by Sir Peter Scott, based on Gerald Watterson’s sketches of Chi-Chi the giant panda at London Zoo.
While it is clearly a very cute animal, McKinlay says that initial motivations to use the panda were as much about practicality as aesthetics: “Not only is it stunning in its simplicity, but it’s a monotone image that is easy to reproduce.” It now ranks as one of the most powerful and recognisable symbols on the planet.
‘Cinderella’ species
The giant panda is also a classic example of a conservation ‘flagship’, a species that acts as an ambassador for a specific marketing campaign, habitat or conservation issue. Flagships successfully attract funding, but critics argue that the approach only benefits a handful of well-known species.
In a 2012 study, Veríssimo and colleagues analysed the mammalian flagships used by 59 international NGOs on their websites. They found that only 80 species were used out of a possible 1,098, with 58 per cent being primates or carnivores, most frequently tigers.
The study also identified 183 other threatened mammals, dubbed ‘Cinderella species,’ that were overlooked as flagships despite their aesthetic appeal. The five highest-scoring Critically Endangered species were the Talaud bear cuscus, the Pennant’s red colobus, the tamaraw or Mindoro dwarf buffalo, the African wild ass and the pygmy or Cozumel raccoon.
Veríssimo is unaware of any campaigns subsequently established around Cinderella species, but while the team at WWF were unfamiliar with the term, they noted that “it could be a potentially interesting way to explore different species to communicate on and raise support for.”
Our appetite for cuteness shows no signs of waning – this is clear from the remarkable longevity of Hello Kitty and the viral response to that little rusty-spotted cat. And yet, while it may seem like a frivolous topic for scientific research, understanding and harnessing the cute response may benefit wildlife conservation.
By strategically focusing on aesthetic qualities, conservationists may be able to draw attention to less familiar or less preferred species, reducing the considerable inequality in how the various species are perceived and supported. Marketing tools may provide additional value by tapping into human behaviour.
“It’s all about how we package it as a narrative,” says Veríssimo. “Raising awareness is probably not going to be enough. I think we need to go into the realm of behaviour change if we want to really make a difference.”
Main image: The deep-sea anglerfish is now being preserved at the MUNA Museum of Nature and Archaeology / Getty
More wildlife stories from around the world
- Snake Island, the terrifying island off Brazil that only scientists and soldiers can visit
- These lions were tracked for eight years through the vast plains of Zambia
- Rare black wolves caught on trail camera in Polish forest
- Like maggots on a wound, these surprising creatures could help heal dying coral reefs around the world
