Survival of the cutest

As most of us know (minus the kids in Alabama and Mississippi) natural selection is generally the means by which speciation of life on the Earth occurs.  The better something survives, the more likely it is to continue surviving and "get busy."  This can be explained by an examination of finches.  Somehow.  You'll have to ask Darwin about that. Anyways, I've realized that--at least for most environmentally minded folks--survival of the fittest has been largely supplanted by survival of the cutest.

For example,the new poster-child for saving the world from global warming, the polar bears, and oh boy aren't they cute!

No one ever talks about saving the walrus because, let's be honest, any animal that bears a striking resemblance to your creepy uncle with the perv 'stache is not the cutest thing in the world.

Anyways, as Merry and I were watching our nature documentary last night, we starting talking about which things will make it under survivial of the cutest and which won't.  We came up with the following lists.

Survive:
polar bears
baby seals
baby beluga whales
arctic foxes
almost any baby animal
deer
big cats
puppies
lady bugs
otters
butterflies
etc. etc.

Ain't gonna make it:

LOBSTERS!!!

bugs in general (with the exception of lady bugs)
cockroaches
most people (except, as noted above, babies)

squid

pigeons
rats
scorpions

The jury is still out on platypi (sorry Perry)

I think we're drawn to try and save cute animals because we know, deep in our hearts, that if things keep going the way they're going, eventually it will just be us and the cockroaches here on Earth fighting it out for the scraps left over after the boomers have ruined it all.