Who Wants to Live a Million Years Questions

How many generations did it take for you to finally win a game? Why do you think it took this long? What do you think this means/suggests for most real species on Earth in terms of their species chances of long-term survival? Surprisingly I survived the first time. I think i just got lucky because I wasn't even completely sure how to play the game.I now realize how many species there must have been that didn't survive, that we know nothing about.
 
Which initial phenotypes/phenotype combinations did you select and why?Which starting/initial combinations seemed to allow you to continue/survive the longest (win the most games)? Why do you think this was so? I usually picked a tall organism that could reach tall plants, an organism with long fur to survive the cold, and an organism with with spikes to protect itself from predators. The reason I believe this combination worked is that all had traits that kept it alive and together could survive a Million years.

Do you think this population of theoretical creatures would be greatly affected by genetic drift? What evidence of drift did you see as you played the game (simulation)? The fictional animals in the game who want to live a million years are very sensitive to genetic drift. The animals adapt very quickly due to changes in allele frequencies in a population due to random events or chance.The weather changes in the stimulator had vast changes. Such as the animals needed to develop a defense trait if a predator was to appear. However if the animals were not properly built for the changes, the species would eventually die off. 

Which alleles/phenotypes seemed to be dominant and which seemed to be recessive? How could you tell? The allele I found to be dominant were the different lengths which were often visible on the animals. The trait I found to be recessive was the stripes found on the animals. The stripes were not always present and would come and go on the animal.

Match the environments/situations/conditions below with their corresponding adaptations:
(a) cold conditions; (b) hot conditions; (c) new large predator on the scene; (d) new tall food source
Once the situation shifted in the game, the animals had to make adaptations to be able to survive in there new surroundings. When the weather changed, they attempted to either grow hair and get fatter to survive the cold or lose weight and hair in order to withstand the heat.  When presented with a new large predator, the animals needed to have long legs to run faster and stripes to camouflage themselves.  Similar to the predator, the animals needed either long legs or long necks or both to reach higher food sources.
How would you improve this simulation to more realistically represent natural selection and biological evolution? Discuss at least three improvements. If I were to give input to improve the stimulator I would get rid of the life preservers. I found that I barely needed them because a lot of the situations did not require life preservers at the last minute. It is less realistic and would not happen in the real wild. Another thing I would like is to see if the animals could live thru modern day problems like pollution, deforestation, and human activity. I would also recommend more species and styles of animals like aquatic.