Artificial Life - Life Forms and Creatures. Life Forms Currently artificial life study is much like entomology.
Life forms simulated are simple and small with short life spans and simple world views.
In Tom Ray's Tierra these creatures were very small, only a few instructions long. This did not stop them mimicking many of the behavioral patterns found in nature. These creatures could be seen as Kinetic cellular automata with location as one of their status values. There is a shifting scale of complexity from John Conway's life up to and beyond Karl Sim's evolving creatures or the polygons of Polyworld created by Larry Yeager. A good example of seeing natural behaviour on the computer screen is Craig Reynolds' Boids.