Serval Grassland Hunt Lab (2D)

Hunters

Servals 4

Grassland & Hearing

Grass height 55%

Hearing accuracy 80%

Live Readout

Pounces caught

Strike success

—

Detection radius

—

Avg. energy

100%

🌾 Servals (Leptailurus serval) have the largest ears relative to body size of any cat — this lets them localize rodents moving under grass or snow and execute a near-vertical "mousing pounce" that can clear over a metre, pinning prey with their forepaws before it can bolt.

How it works

Each rodent scurries in short dashes through the grass; every dash emits a rustle "ping" that spreads outward. A serval that is within earshot detects it with a real bearing-and-range estimate that degrades with distance and with your hearing-accuracy slider — this is a simplified model of binaural sound localization (interaural time/level differencing):

soundRadius  = 20 × (1 − 0.32 × grassHeight)         tall grass muffles the rustle
angleError   = (1 − hearingAccuracy) × 55°            worse ears → worse bearing fix
rangeError   = (1 − hearingAccuracy) × 0.55 × dist     worse ears → worse distance fix
strikeChance = 0.30 + 0.55·hearingAccuracy − 0.42·grassHeight + freshness

Stalk — on a detection the serval computes an estimated fix (true position offset by the angle/range error above) and creeps toward it, not the rodent's real position.
Pounce — once close enough to the true rodent, the serval leaps; deep grass gives the rodent a last-instant escape window, so strike success falls as grass height rises, while sharper hearing (a fresher, more precise fix) raises it.
Energy — patrolling and stalking sip energy slowly; a pounce costs a burst regardless of outcome, and a catch refunds it — so more hunters chasing the same rodent pool compete for a limited energy budget.

Servals hunt on their own — hearing and grass sliders change how well they find prey

Serval patrolling Serval stalking Serval pouncing Rodent