Organisms often experience reproduction-dispersal tradeoffs mediated by body size. In ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) the Found or Fly (FoF) Hypothesis states that dispersing queens face an ecological tradeoff between colony founding and flight success mediated by abdominal nutrient loading. If expressed interspecifically, such a tradeoff implies biomechanical costs to more energetically demanding life history strategies. Claustrally founding queens, who carry the entire resource load necessary to fuel early colony growth, may incur flight costs. We characterized the flight morphology of 21 Neotropical species representing four major subfamilies, spanning four orders of magnitude in body mass and practicing several colony founding strategies. Flight morphologies were compared in a phylogenetic context to evaluate how they varied with body size and reproductive ecology. Consistent with FoF, claustral founders had 30 % lower flight muscle ratios (FMR) and trended toward higher abdomen drag than species in which founding queens feed. The two strategies did not differ in wing loading. Instead, claustral founders evolved larger wings, counteracting the effect of heavier abdomens. Heavy nutrient loads pushed several claustral species to theoretical limits of flight by lowering FMR to levels which cause flightlessness in other insects. Selection for higher nutrient loads related to colony founding is a possible mechanism for the recurrent evolution of flightlessness in ants. The importance and conflicting demands of nutrient storage and flight make ant queens ideal organisms for modeling reproduction-dispersal tradeoffs. By emphasizing the role of flight in ant biology, the FoF Hypothesis highlights this tradeoff and provides novel insights into ant evolution.