whatTwo kinds of forager hunt the same field of food at the same speed with the same eyes. One takes short steps; the other now and then takes an enormous one. When food is patchy the long-steppers win, and the live score keeps count.

whyThe Levy flight hypothesis says that many animals search this way for a reason. The piece lets you turn the food knob and see when the strategy matters and when it makes no difference at all.

howA Brownian forager takes steps of much the same length. A Levy forager draws each step from a power law: mostly short, occasionally huge. Food regrows slowly, in patches. When food is sparse, the Brownian forager re-searches the same emptied ground while the Levy forager's long flights carry it to fresh patches. When food is dense, every step finds something and the two tie. Rings are Brownian, crosses are Levy; the slider sets how much food there is.