An interesting word I learnt from listening to Daniel Dennett: synanthrope. Such creatures include pigeons, rats, barnswallows, bed bugs. They benefit from living around humans without providing much in the way of return service.

There does seem to be a trend for embracing and celebrating animals which formerly have been considered ugly or pestilent. For example my son was recently introduced to a tarantula named Miss Fuzzyboots. In parody we have Hagrid of the Harry Potter films trotting out dangerous and/or repulsive beasts for class appreciation ("They're seriously misunderstood creatures...")

Is this a sort of moral/aesthetic inversion or are we genuinely expanding our 'circle of empathy'?

http://adami.natsci.msu.edu/blog/2013/04/the-evolution-of-ci...