Memojis clogging up photos section on Messages

I often use the facility to search through photos / links etc that a person has sent in messages - by clicking on their name at the top of the thread to see what they've sent. Since iOS 26 I've noticed that the photos tab now includes every time they've sent a Memoji. My wife uses Memojis a lot so that photos tab is now so clogged with them it's useless?

Messages didn't used to categorise memojis as photos - is there a way to switch this off?