why do we have this connection with animals?

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I agree with the above. I like that I can be myself around animals and they won't think I'm strange. Also I think animals know that I won't eat them so they trust me. I read something once about hunters giving up meat for a week before a big hunt. The prey can smell them if they eat meat. I don't eat meat and it certainly seems that animals are drawn to me. I think they also sense if you like them or not. However I don't think this applies to cats. Cats always ignore me and make a beeline for my partner who pushes them away as he's allergic. I think cats like the challenge of winning over someone who isn't interested

^This. Plus, they don't lie to you or play mind games--they like you or they don't, no screwing around. And when they do like you, they generally do not decide to turn on you later for some ridiculous *reason.*

I can look animals in the eye with no problem, not like people. Also I find it quite obvious what they are communicating.

Ann that's awesome that you understand what they want to tell us, I wish I could this. I'll guess at it but I'm unsure if I'm right. Please explain more about how you do this, is it kind of like telepathy?

I've just remembered something that happened once a long time ago. I was woken early in the morning by the faint sound of squeaking. Normally when I'm asleep not much will wake me and I sleep through loud noises. The squeak was one of my baby guinea pigs who'd gotten his head trapped in the bars of the cage. I don't know how I'd heard this barely audible sound from downstairs when I was upstairs and doors were shut. I think somehow I sensed he was in danger rather than his call alerted me. When I went to him he stopped squeaking and waited for me to help him, I'm sure he knew I was going to

I added a theory on the introductory post. Please check it out and comment!
it has to do with what has been discussed so far, specially 1401b

People seem to complicate things with their ego.
Animals are very straightforward. If they want company, they'll be right there with you.

Animal movements and actions seem obvious to me.

I dont think so. It's just obvious.

Me too and add to that small children too. I just find it ironic how both tend to avoid direct eye contact with me! To answer the OP, I would say the same reason babies and toddlers are SO easy to deal with: they are straightforward, honest-to-a-fault and there is no hidden meaning to their actions.

i'm not sure about animals in general. But i am an animal lover and treat them with deep respect. But cats are what i have an affinity with, i've grown up with cats in our household and they were my only best friends as a kid. They didn't think i was weird and they didn't pick on me. But also i like the feel of their fur, the rumble of their purr and the sound of their chirps and meows, these things feel nice to me and are comforting, relaxing. I also find i sleep better when there's a cat on my bed at night

But like someone else said on this topic, i find eye contact with them a lot easier. I don't know why though. I think i might be because they don't 'talk', so i'm just processing their body language instead. I think for autistics it's hard to process all the difference informations you get when someone talks to you, and THEN to process body language information too. It's abit overwhelming.

I find that whenever i go round my parents or a friends house and they have a cat(s) i'm drawn to them and have to be pulled away lol otherwise i will just happily spend all my time there with the cats.

I also like echoing cat noises after they've made them. It's a habit i've picked up since, according to my parents, since before i could talk.

I can completely feel what my dogs are feeling when I look at them and I can completely empathize with them. I can look at their face and body language and know what state they are in. I cant do this with other humans. I am trying to learn how to emulate what I can do with my dogs(who love me and i love them) with humans. If I could emulate or some how transcribe to humans what I can do with animals I would essentially "cure" a large portion of my ASD. It is so frustrating some times to be able to do this with dog but not humans, or at least not as well.

I love animals. I always feel relaxed around them. They give me something to focus on. Animals tend to like me too. My cat follows me around the house a lot and loves to be in my lap. He has sometimes meowed when he couldn't see me. But other people's pets like me more than other strangers too and some of them don't like new people at all. Once I get to know an animal, they seem simple and predictable. But this doesn't explain why they tend to love me.

^^ Except for the glass of wine, that's me in the picture

I very much agree with this. I know my dog's body language so well, that a lot of the time, she only has to look at me and I know what she wants. She's really smart and understands a lot of what I say, too. When I talk to her, I know what her reactions mean. (For example, when she doesn't like something, she snorts). I could have an actual conversation with her as if I were talking to a human, but I usually don't, because people would think I was nutty.

One reason animals may be esier for autistic people to relate to is because of their eyes.
Human eyes evolved to have white sclera and smaller irises allowing more of the sclera (whites of the eyes) to show.
That allows us to gain more non verbal information by tracking the movement and gaze of the eyes.
Apperently that was important to survival in early hominids.
All that eye information can seem strange and spooky to those of us not inclined or interested in reading such information in eyes.
The eyes of most other mammals including other primates have very little sclera visible around the irises because the irises are bigger and the sclera are darker
Their eyes apear as languid pools of dark color that are tranquil and much esier to look at than human eyes.

I used to think so, but then after hanging around WrongPlanet for a while and attending a string of autistic meet-ups, that assumption was proven false pretty quickly.

Also homophobia, sexism, and religious intolerance. Not to mention ableism. Oh God ableism. In fact, I'd say that on average, an HFA racist is a notch more obnoxious than an NT racist because of the autistic tendency to obsess over things. A bigoted zealot is going to be all the more zealous if all that hatred is going to get concentrated into their special interests and routines. Then, there's the added factor of having a poorer sense of social tact, so everything they blurt out is going to be ten times as harsh.

But on topic, I actually agree with the notion that for those among us who relate to animals fairly well or better than we relate to humans, is because the social norms, mores, and expectations of contact with other humans (they expect us to 'understand' all the social conventions), are not present when we try to connect to a cat or a bird or a rabbit or a turtle etc. I think much the same goes for the animals themselves though. I get along with my aunt's cat like a house on fire, but that's also because she doesn't have to pretend I'm a cat and do all the cat-specific social stuff. We can just recline on the couch together, not understanding each other's language, but understanding each other on a more primal plane, if that makes sense.