We ’ ve known for centuries that man ’ s best friend is the dog - right ? Not necessarily , according to a latest YouGov study , which found that lobsters were the preferred animals for men - when compared to the choices by women - followed by alligators , sticklebacks , sharks and eagles . For women , meanwhile , the results were a bit more timid - with miniature pigs , cats , ponies , donkeys and chinchillas making up the top five . Man 's new best friend ? Dogs may have once ruled the roost , but now according to a YouGov survey of people in the UK , men prefer lobsters as their favourite animal - when compared to female choices - which may be because they associate them with fine dining ( picture of red reef lobster shown ) The study involved a poll of 190,000 YouGov members in the UK , which the company says is ‘ perhaps the largest dataset ever collected of people ’ s passions and phobias in the animal world ’ . Overall , when gender is not taken into account , the nation ’ s favourite animals are dogs , tigers , elephants , cats and dolphins . The least favoured are eels , millipedes and spiders . When male choices were compared to female choices , however , there was a surprising battle of the sexes on what the most popular animals were . The data showed that lobsters were the most popular animal among men when compared to those less liked by women , followed by alligators , sticklebacks and so on . For women , compared to men , it was miniature pigs at the top of the list , followed by cats and ponies . As for the most popular animals , the study found that things like dogs and snails were slightly more popular among women than men . Men were more likely to prefer 'heroic ' , 'aggressive ' or 'creepy ' animals , while women preferred 'cute ' , 'beautiful ' and 'exotic ' species . In the episode of The Simpsons titled Lisa Gets an ' A ' ( seventh episode of season 10 ) , Homer Simpsons gets a pet lobster that he names Pinchy , and unfortunately ends up cooking him towards the end of the episode . While his actions seemed bizarre , did Homer actually predict that the animal was favoured by men ? For women , when their choices were compared to men , their favourite animals were miniature pigs ( shown ) , followed by cats , ponies , donkeys and chinchillas . ‘ Animals with violent defensive abilities - sharks , eagles and piranhas - are particularly favoured by men , ’ noted Will Dahlgreen in an article for YouGov . ‘ The only mammal in the top 20 most uniquely male animals is the Narwhal , while every animal in the corresponding female list apart from the penguin and butterfly is mammal. ’ Speaking to MailOnline , Mr Dahlgreen added that his suspicion as to why men are more likely to have a positive impression of lobsters is because they associate them with fine dining . 'As for why miniature pigs score so highly on female uniqueness , this isn ’ t because men are particularly likely to dislike them , but because women are more likely to be drawn towards cute animals , ' he continued . 'We can ’ t tell for sure , but I suspect this is because it is easier to anthropomorphise these animals , in other words to ascribe human emotions to their facial expressions . ' This chart shows the full scores for the 'uniquely male ' animals , which were the ones that scored especially high with men but not high with women . Conversely , this chart shows those animals favoured by women , but not liked so much by men . It should be noted that none of the animals were 'disliked ' - the survey asked for positive results only .
YouGov ##itch asked 190,000 people in the UK which animals they liked . For both reasons the most popular animals were lions and tigers . But when the genders were correlated , the results were surprising . Men preferred lions , alligators , sticklebacks , bears and eagles . others were in favour of miniature pigs , cats , ponies and donkeys .