Model Description
This project models the hardships of caterpillars to survive as they continue
in their life cycle.
In our model, caterpillars turn into larvae which turn into butterflies, whom
lay eggs and birth new caterpillars. However, they are a breed of caterpillars
that are smaller and are susceptible to predators such as ants that can prey upon them.
As they go through their life cycle we want to model the increasing chance of predators
to find them.
Our models revolves around the idea of movement and how it affects the caterpillar's
death rates. In reality, very few caterpillars reach adulthood, 98% of the eggs
will not reach butterfly form, due to nature. There are many reasons for this
but the ones we chose to model is the pupa's and caterpillar's susceptibility to predators
and the risk of starvation.
We will showcase the progression of our model, from a super simple caterpillar model
that has no death factors, to showcase the known exponential growth that will occur,
to adding a predator variable that affects the population of caterpillars that
will survive, to another hunger variable with food that caterpillars have to
scavenge.