Take caterpillars for example: if a bird eats a fatally poisonous caterpillar and dies immediately, it learned nothing, the caterpillar gained nothing for being poisonous, and that caterpillar species will continue to be preyed upon.
But if a caterpillar is only mildly toxic, and a bird eats it, the bird may survive and learn to avoid things that look like it, and that caterpillar species as a whole benefits as the cycle continues.
Am I missing something obvious? Wouldn’t it make more sense for mild toxicity to prevail as the more advantageous trait, over time?
edit: another point of confusion — more toxic animals tend to advertise their unsavoriness with bright colors. We generally accept that predators know to avoid brightly colored prey, but if they die during their very first encounter with one, how is that info passed along to other predators?
In: Biology
Evolution doesnt work by “learning”. It works by snuffing things out. If a specie of bird eats toxic caterpillar, they will die out. And what you have left are birds who live by not eating toxic caterpillar, and toxic caterpillar who live by not being eaten by the birds.
Same with bright colors. We can imagine this to be a strategy, but there is nothing conscious about it, just evolutionary pressures.
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