Re: Animals that are poisonous to ingestion Social Behavior

"Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmenegay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
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<drosen0000@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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I doubt that Blue Jays have learned that information
"instinctually", meaning that it's not yet incorporated into their
germline DNA. I suspect that each individual bird must eat one or
two Monarchs before he gets the idea, but once he does, the death
of those individuals protects thousands of others.


Of course, it doesn't really help any of the Monarch descendents
that would have been born if the prey individual had survived.
However, maybe some form of frequency dependent selection would give
venomosity a long term advantage.

You are missing an essential point about Monarchs. A Monarch doesn't
have to 'work at' being toxic. It is toxic due to its milkweed diet.

It may have to 'work at' *looking* toxic - i.e. having a bright orange
color. But that work pays off for the individual that does it. It
doesn't require altruism or deme-level selection. In fact, it pays
off so well that Viceroys mimic Monarch coloration - again for selfish
reasons.

Please explain how looking toxic pays off for the first Monarch butterfly
that does it. (Wirt has explained how when warning coloration has once
evolved, it may be easier to evolve in other species, but let us assume
that this Monarch butterfly is the first of any species to use warning
coloration). The first Monarch butterly to become bright orange makes
itself visually obvious, and since it is the first, and the Blue Jays
don't know that orange means toxic, one eats it. The Blue Jay gets sick,
but the butterly is dead, and its bright orange genes are dead with it.

Of course, the Monarch butterflies are already toxic, so maybe the Blue
Jays already know to avoid them. But then how does becoming orange, and
thereby looking less like other Monarch butterflies, help?

Now perhaps it is a gradual increase in Monarchness, in which any
development of distinguishing characteristics helps all the Monarchs? But
then why would this consistently converge among many different species on
similar colors?

Yours,

Bill Morse

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