So if cute faces and noises hold others’ attention, it might be to our advantage to stay cute. The evolutionary process where juvenile features in an ancestor are retained into adulthood in a descendant is called neoteny. This means as an animal gets older, it still looks young by keeping juvenile features perceived as cute throughout its life, such as bigger eyes, shorter snouts in domesticated dogs, gills in the axolotl salamander, and playful behavior. (The bigger eyes and playful behavior is true for humans, too!)