By unanimous vote, the choice falls to you. What animal do you choose to send and why? it can be the baby form of the animal or the fully grown adult version.
Whales speak alien according to star trek to I choose whales. But the whales secretly hate humans because we’ve been killing whales for hundreds of years.
I’d send a very large taxidermized elephant. Beam it straight up to their mothership. When they claim that it’s not very cute, I’d provide a long-winded pseudo-philosophical diatribe about the meaning of cuteness and how they should not be so quick to pass judgement. While their council convenes to decide our fate, the world’s greatest covert operatives exit the elephant through a carefully concealed trapdoor in the bottom. They commandeer the ship. Let the counter-invasion begin.
based on previous experiences I’d say there is a very high chance this will work.