Papilio machaon - osmetrium

[Esther Cornelius]

John:  The reversed arguement still says the same thing.

The DO's are right but substitute "sufficent" for "good" & "large", and
"dispersal" for "flight ability". 

The DONT's only real option is smaller size, 2 & 3 are not options
because they decrease either offspring numbers or dispersal over what we
might assume is already a food depleted region, because if food were not
depleted then there would be insufficent culling to alter the species.
Think of like global pollution.

I'm firmly undecided about the chicken or egg, but if, for the sake of
arguement, large size did automatically produce wide dispersal, which it
would appear to, it still dosent explain what SELECTS for large, there
are smaller ones naturally slower and more dim witted, and tastier, AND
there's millions of them so why a big size?
The fact is that large size dosen't automatically produce wide dispersal
(ie: some speyerias and morphos) but in the case where the local food
supply is missing, strong wings will get you out of there, and
caterpillars that chase away their littermates have that much less
restriction on how much they eat, so they COULD BE selected for bigness.
My unproven contention is that they are.
 
Bill