BugHunt -- Simulated Evolution    
A Project Sponsored by OBONU 2009

How does the BugHunt competition work?

The competition starts with 30 randomly colored bugs in it, and for every player beyond 4, we add 4 more bugs.

When a player clicks on a bug, that bug is removed from the population, and a new bug will be born to replace it. This new bug will start out very small and slowly grow to the size of the adult bugs. Each new bug born is an asexual offspring of a randomly selected bug from the population. Each offspring inherits the color of its parent, but with very slight variation so that it has an equal chance of being darker or lighter, greener or less green, bluer or less blue, etc... than its parent. These variations are randomly generated.

By the end of the competition, the population of the bugs will have evolved to be far better camouflaged in their environment (the background image) than when the competition started. This camouflaging "emerges" from the mechanisms of evolution built into the model. The graph on the right shows the change in the bug poulations' degree of camouflage.

Do you notice how the environments differently affect the rate of camouflage? Which environment is hardest for the predators?