Aerial predation and butterfly design: how palatability, mimicry, and the need for evasive flight constrain mass allocation

Among 124 Neotropical species, allocation of body mass to flight muscle and other tissues varied according to palatability and mimicry status. Unpalatable and mimetic species had proportionally less flight muscle and had larger guts and ovaries, which may allow greater fecundity. Nearly all palatable and nonmimetic species had enough flight muscle to enable greater acceleration than avian insectivores, but at the cost of having smaller guts and ovaries. -from Authors