I want to believe you, but this sounds like the discovery channel interpertation of evolution. Cuteness? How do you even define or measure that scientifcally. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, if I can use one platitude. Personally, I find human babies to be hideous pooping machines that are not even remotely cute. I know there are many men who (silently) feel the same way, and maybe even woman too. I'm not sure how that fits into your hypothesis. Yes, when animals are not stressed about what they are going to eat next, they may have the time to appreciate the appearance or behaviors or other animals in a non-sexual way. However, this is not necessarily the case. They are more likely to classify other individuals as threatening or non-threatening, meal or not a meal, or potential mate or not. To argue that animals must have what is essentially a sence of aesthesics is like trying to argue that they must have a soul - it cannot be done scientfically. But I think that the safe bet is that some individuals within the social mammal species only, may have a conception of what humans consider cuteness, but only some of them. You cannot say that they all do, or then I must find human babies cute. You cannot say that they all do, or then animals would "adopt" others as you suggest much more often then they really do. One of the most distrubing images I can recall (i probally shouldn't put this in aww; sorry) is of a bachelor lion taking over a pride and killing the cubs. As the enormous lion trotted towards the cub, the cub rolled over on to its back and showed its stomach in a playful way. It was killed instantaly. I still wonder what that cub was thinking at the time. Was he expecting to be played with or did it know it was "being cute" for its life. So, I think your universial idea of cuteness fails here. What we call cute is actually just a communication of submission among felines - a communication that this ursurper heard loud and clear and without remorse. I recall along time ago seeing footage of two chimpanzees, male and female, holding hands and watching the sunset on top of a ridge or hill. I wonder if my memory fails me sometimes and if that really happened because I still don't believe it. Maybe it was just the sunset and they weren't holding hands. I think it did happen though! Also, I think I recall thinking that that was absolutely fucking amazing!. I would not have used the word cute then becuase I was just a young boy, but I will admit now that it was very damn cute. Consider this. What do you feel when you see couples holding hands? Sometimes you might think "cute". Other times you may feel jealous or indifferent. If it's two people of the same sex and you are higly homophobic you might find it offensive. But if you are in southeast Asia, you might not think anything of it because it is not unusual there for people of the same sex to hold hands. But if you see two chimpanzees doing it then it is automatically cute. That's strange. I wonder if there is even a universal idea of cutenes just among humans, let alone among all animals/mammels. A more interesting/funny question might be: since humans appear to find it cute when animals do things that only humans normally do, is the converse true? Do animals find it cute when we behave like animals? Does your dog think you are being cute when you are on all fours barking or does he think you're insane? Does your cat think you are being cute when you hide around the corner and stalk it or is it just annoyed? I don't know. Sorry for the 5am writing sesssion. Back to bed.