Re: yellow and black

someone2 <glenn.spig...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I might be being a bit slow here, but I don't see where
you are saying why the common pattern would be
more likely to evolve in harmful insects than
non-harmful insects.

If your defense is harm, then you do not depend on
camouflage. In fact, it's exactly the opposite.
Camouflage would do you no good, because predators
couldn't tell you from the harmless insects dependent
on camouflage. I mean, they'd regret trying to eat you,
but you'll already be dead. But only for the short
term...

If poisoned creatures were camouflaged just like the
harmless ones, and the predators couldn't tell them
apart, that would drive predator evolution to counteract
the poison.

Likewise, if the vast majority of harmless creatures
were similar in appearance to the harmful ones, that
would drive predator evoultion to counteract the
poison. There'd be no way around it, as predators
couldn't avoid poisoned prey, so they would die
without it.

Anyway, how could natural selection hit upon a
limited number of colors/patterns for the dangerous
creatures?

How could it not?

I mean, do you really expect insects, reptiles and
small mammals to memorize a wide array of colors
and patterns?

In order to work, it's got to work across species...
phyla...

Anything BUT the lowest common denominator
wouldn't work, which means evolutionary pressure
would continue towards that lowest common
denominator.


.

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