107 Wholesome And Heart-Melting Animal Moments To Make Your Day Brighter

Looking at pictures of cute animals after a stressful day at work is relaxing for sure. But animals are cute not just for our sake: it's an evolutionary trait that they developed to help their chances of survival. Scientists believe that we love cute animals (especially baby animals) because they remind us of our own offspring.

In simple terms, babies of all species have some common characteristics. Their heads are way too huge for their bodies, with round cheeks, a big forehead, small noses and mouths, and chonky, round bodies. Austrian ethologist and zoologist Konrad Lorenz described them as the "baby schema." Essentially, things like playfulness or a clumsy gait immediately elicit an "aww" reaction from us because they remind us of babies.

What do adults want to do with babies? Protect them, of course! This applies to babies of all species, apparently. In 2009, German and American scientists discovered that we humans want to look after creatures we find adorable. So, even baby elephants, who look nothing like human babies, elicit a motherly instinct in us.

Eloise Stark, who works in the psychiatry department at the University of Oxford, says that seeing a baby animal triggers activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, an area of the brain involved in rewards.

"We think this early activity biases the brain towards processing the cute stimulus – for example, by making sure we give it our full attention," she explained. "The effect of this may be to approach the infant or cute animal, wanting to pick it up or look after it."

Stark also says that both humans and animals have evolved to help each other out in this context. Over the years, humans have found helpless baby animals cuter and cuter, and that somewhat improves their rate of survival. At the same time, the animals might be getting cuter so we want to take care of them and protect them from predators. "The cuteness activates the same brain mechanisms, regardless of whether the object is a baby, a puppy or an object," Stark clarifies.

One trait in dogs that we find particularly cute is "puppy eyes." It's when they raise their inner eyebrows (the LAOM, or the levator anguli oculi medialis muscle). The ability to use that muscle is what differentiates domesticated dogs from wolves, who don't have the ability to stare with "puppy eyes." And you know which dogs also can't move their eyebrows in that way? Huskies!

Scientists theorize that huskies never had to appeal to humans, as we used them for specific purposes, like pulling sleds in the Arctic. Humans chose to domesticate other dogs for companionship, and we chose huskies as working dogs – they didn't have to appeal to us. Huskies are also closer than any other dog breed in their genetic makeup to wolves, making this more credible.

But nature is full of surprises because domestic dogs are not the only ones who can make "puppy eyes." Apparently, coyotes have a working LAOM muscle, too. A 2024 study challenged the idea that domestic dogs developed "puppy eyes" to communicate with humans because coyotes do it, too. The scientists posit that the LAOM muscle developed in coyotes and potentially dogs because of vision and eye movements.