Who Wants to Live a Million Years: Analysis of a Natural Selection Simulation- Jenny

       In the game, Who Wants to Live a Million Years, it takes many generations to survive. After two tries, my animals survived for a million years.  As more obstacles and challenges appear, the animals must mate with animals that have desirable qualities that will help them survive. In this game, about 4-7 generations pass by, each with a new obstacle. The animals will survive if they have adaptations that will help conquer these challenges. In real life, when challenges appear it is difficult to mate with someone with desirable qualities because of Natural Selection.

       When you chose your specimen in the beginning of the game, you had to be careful. I had originally just chosen simple animals with little diversity. I mostly had short animals with stripes. To have your species survive, you have to chose animals that have adaptations that will survive through everything. When I chose my specimen, I chose animals that had all the characteristics that would help them survive. The animals had to be able to keep warm, cool, to reach tall plants for food, to be camouflage, and to be agile. 

       Fake animals, like the ones in this game, are susceptible to genetic drift. Genetic drift is a shift in allele frequencies population due to random events or chance. These animals go through genetic drift such as weather. When the temperature dropped to freezing temperatures, the animals had to adapt quickly or they would die. In this situation, they adapted by growing longer fur. 

       It was difficult to tell which genes were recessive or dominant. The longer and fuzzier fur appeared very often, which would lead to it being most likely a dominant gene. The stripes that were used as camouflage, would most likely be a recessive gene because it didn't appear as often as the other traits. 

       The different obstacles each had their own trait that would help the animals adapt. When the weather got cold, the animals had to adapt by growing long fur. The animals had to have short hair or no hair at all when it got hot; and when a predator appeared, they had to be able to camouflage and run fast (stripes and long legs). When a new tall food source appeared, the animals had to have long necks and legs to be able to reach it. 

       To make this situation more realistic, I would have had more situations. I would also have more than one situation happening at the same time. More situations that you could add could be humans, predation, and lack of water or resources. There could also be more types of animals. Instead of being limited to the certain animals, there should more options. They should also get rid of the life preservers that you could use if you were dying. In real life, you don't have the option of using "life preservers," you have to make do with what you have.