There are a number of species of insects that use a foul taste for defense. I watched part of a TV program recently that showed one such species with a baby alligator as a predator. The narrator said that after the alligator eats a couple of the bugs, it will learn its lesson and eat no more. Altough the scene may have been staged for TV, they showed the 'gator killing one of the bugs.
Obviously the defense is good for the species as a whole, but how did natural selection come into play in the development of the foul taste, if a couple bugs are killed before the predator learns its lesson? The foulest tasting bug has no better chance of survivng to pass on its genes than any of the other bugs.
I'm sure biologists have contemplated this and written about it. Maybe it's even been discussed here at EVC before. But I haven't come across the answer yet. Who has plausible speculation?
Edited by InGodITrust, : spelling