I saw on the front of Wildlife magazine one of their articles this month is about why we like certain animals and dislike others. I haven't bought the magazine (yet) but I thought it was a very interesting question.

There's the obvious reasons that some animals just seem "cuter" or better looking than others. Some are disliked because they prey on the animals which do seem cuter. But do you also think it's us trying to put human values onto wildlife?

Absolutely! Humans have endowed certain animals with various attributes since time immemorial.

Who does not think of horses as 'noble steeds'?

Kingly lions?

Which animals are found to be 'disliked'?

Kingfisher

rats???

Now that's a really fascinating question and something I hadn't considered before. I think that it will be an interesting article to read, I'll look out for the magazine.

On thinking about it, the main influence on what we consider to be cute or not cute has to be our parents (I've long held the view that the main reason arachnophobia is so widespread among the female population of Britain is that mothers, unintentionally for the most part I'm sure, teach their daughters to be afraid of spiders) there has though to more to it then that, something in our distant past must have led our ancestors to decide on what's cute or not cute.

Cuteness doesn't come into it for me when I say that I like a certain animal over another, I think animals are cute but thats not the reason they fascinate me. For instance, I love watching snakes and spiders and I think a spider cacthing and wrapping up its prey is one of the most spectacular things in nature. I think predatory animals are spectacular, and although I think animals like baby gazzelles or baby blue tit are cute, I wouldn't ever cringe at a cheetah catching a gazzele or a spar featsing on a blue tit, its nature and that is why I love it, not because of how it looks.

I think people can think animals are cute once they don't do things like scare sparrowhawks of an animal they are trying to kill to survie or let there emotions get in the way about something that is natural to happen in nature.