As for the language for your project, my advice on choosing the language would be the same as that given by wiser monks than I in articles such as Is Perl the right solution... : what language are you most comfortable in.

As to the idea of writing an evolution simulator, I would suggest to you as a resource issues of Scientific American magazine, as I remember seeing a number of issues in the 1980s and early 1990s in which appeared a column called Computer Recreations (and later, if I recall, the column was called Mathematical Recreations) that contained several articles on simulated evolutionary paths (including one, as I recall, concerning a toridal-shaped world called Wa-Tor).

The project sounds quite interesting, and I wish you much luck in undertaking it. I am sure many of the monks here would be likely be interested in it, and would enjoy seeing some of the code you produce in it (if you should decide to post it).