Predator and Prey

About this simulation

This ecosystem model treats every rabbit and fox as an individual agent. Foxes chase the nearest rabbit they see, gain energy from each kill, reproduce at full energy and starve at none, while rabbits flee and breed under a grass limit. A graph plots both populations over the last few minutes, and readouts show counts, rabbits per fox and rabbits eaten. Sliders and buttons let students test ideas about birth rates and sudden changes, making it ideal for showing lagged population cycles like the lynx and hare data.

What students can explore

Watch the graph for a few minutes and describe how fox numbers lag behind rabbit numbers.
Raise Rabbit birth rate to 0.5 per second and see how the cycle changes.
Press Release 5 foxes and predict what will happen to the rabbits before it does.
Press Add 40 rabbits when foxes are low and watch the population recover.
Track the Rabbits per fox readout and Rabbits eaten counter over one full cycle.

Learning objectives

1Describe the lagged boom-and-bust cycle of predator and prey populations.
2Explain how food supply limits each population.
3Predict how changing birth rate or adding animals affects both species.
4Relate the simulation to real data such as the lynx and snowshoe hare cycle.

Questions teachers ask

Is the predator and prey simulation free?

Yes. It is free to use in any modern browser, including on whiteboards and tablets. No sign-up or download is required.

Why do predator and prey numbers rise and fall in cycles?

Plenty of prey lets predators multiply. More predators then eat down the prey, so predators starve and fall in number, and the prey recover. The cycle repeats with predators lagging behind prey.

How do I disturb the ecosystem?

Press Release 5 foxes or Add 40 rabbits at any time, or move the Rabbit birth rate and Fox gain per rabbit sliders. Watch the graph to see how long the system takes to settle.

Why is the graph not perfectly smooth?

Every animal is an individual agent with its own chance events, so the curves wobble instead of following the clean Lotka-Volterra equations. If a species dies out, a few immigrants arrive so the demo continues.

Embed this simulation

Drop it into your LMS, blog, or class site — free.

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Continue exploring

Compare starting populations in a closed ecosystem. Prey have limited resources; predators depend on prey. Continuous values represent a model, not counts of individual animals.

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A living meadow valley where grass feeds the rabbits and rabbits feed the foxes. Change the rain, add or remove animals, and watch the populations rise and fall through drought, wildfire, disease and recovery.

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