Xahmoeba
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Artificial life, kept on Xahau

A small species, grown from its genome.

A moeba is not assembled from parts. Thirty-two bytes of genome steer a developmental process that builds its body; the drawing comes last. Two moebas can have a child, and the child looks like its parents for reasons you can trace. The population lives on Xahau, so every lineage is public and every moeba has a keeper.

Meet the moebasHow a body grows from bytesGet started
Living specimenDrawn on your device

SpecimenDrawing a moeba…
A rehearsal, on Xahau testnet

Everything here may be reset without notice.

The species is being run on the test network before its release, where XAH is free and mistakes cost nothing. While it is, the population may be wiped, the issuing account replaced and the rules changed, at any time and without warning. Nothing born here carries over to the release. Take part, break things, and tell us what you find.

Why we rehearse first →Get free testnet XAHReport a fault on X →
The species right now

Reading the ledger…

What makes it a moeba

Grown, not assembled

The genome, with a lab →
  1. 01Genome

    32 bytes, 36 loci, two copies of each — one from each parent. Not a picture seed, not a list of looks.

  2. 02Development

    The genome is read through a fixed set of pathways: how many segments, where limbs attach, how a head forms. A small genetic change alters a step, and everything downstream of that step.

  3. 03Body

    The result is one canonical anatomy. It follows from the genome alone, so it is the same on every device, every time.

  4. 04Drawing

    Only now is it rendered and set in motion. The renderer visualises the body; it never decides it.

Heredity you can see. Because looks follow from the genome step by step, a child resembles its parents in ways that make genetic sense — and this site shows which parent each part came from.
Chance makes the variation; the genome carries it. A child’s draw is settled once, at birth, from chance the network supplies after the parents are chosen. From then on it is inherited, not re-rolled.
Rarity is discovered, not assigned. There is no rarity table. A form is rare when the genetics make it hard to reach, and common when the population keeps breeding it.
A population, not a collection. The founders are the beginning. The work is what the generations do: which lines persist, which forms turn up unexpectedly, which die out.
In one minute

How a birth happens

The whole story, with a lab →
Recently born

The newest members of the population

All moebas →
    Where it comes from

    A new branch of an old idea

    More on the lineage →

    Xahmoeba does not come out of nothing. Growing forms from small sets of rules, and breeding them, is something computer artists and artificial-life researchers have explored for decades. What the ledger adds is that the population now exists outside any one researcher’s simulation: each moeba is kept by someone, and every lineage stays public.

    1. 1968LindenmayerSimple rules can grow complex biological structures.
    2. 1986Dawkins’ biomorphsA genome can generate a form, and a person can breed forms by choosing.
    3. 1994Karl SimsDigital creatures can develop bodies and behaviour from evolving genetic instructions.
    4. 2017–CryptoKitties, Heterosis, ArborithmsDigital heredity becomes ownable, persistent and breedable on a blockchain.
    5. nowXahmoebaDevelopmental heredity, public lineage, emergent rarity and individual keepers, together in one evolving population.
    Go exploring

    Four ways in

    FamiliesThe whole population as one graph. Light up any line, follow a founder down the generations.TraitsOne trait at a time: which bodies, limbs and colours the species has, and who carries them.How it worksGenome, birth, randomness and hooks, each with something to play with rather than only read.My moebasSign in with Xaman or any Xahau wallet to see what you keep, open a moeba to breeding, ask for a birth, or sell.