It will probably be most realistic to start with several types of animal, each able to vary a small amount each generation according to size, speed, (and as a result, food intake), ferocity, gestation period, color, etc. within certain maximum limits. Then once this core is worked out, along with the interactions between the various types, you can add mutations that help or hinder according to certain conditions. If, for instance, your animals were susceptible to malaria, those with sickle-cell anemia (even though it weakens the animal overall) would tend to live longer and would eventually become most of the population. Remove the malaria factor (perhaps the frogs reproduce and kill the mosquitos?) and sickle-cell anemia will quickly die out. Or if birds tend to eat white moths and not black, black moths will quickly take over (incidently, the whole pepper moths thing was a hoax - the moths pictured in those photos were planted on the trees).
Basically, you need to reduce your animals to a list of certain characteristics and corresponding limits. Then define each mutation in terms of these characteristics. A missing leg would cut down on speed and body mass; that missing speed might make the difference between being caught by a faster animal and getting away, or the missing mass might mean the difference between starvation and survival for the animal that eats it.
Check out Spore, the Maxis computer game:
http://www.spore.com
This is going to be a very pretty version of what you're trying to do.
In reply to Re: Using Perl to simulate evolution.
by TedPride
in thread Using Perl to simulate evolution.
by Mychael
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