Larvaworld Documentation
Welcome to Larvaworld’s documentation
Larvaworld is an open-source Python package and virtual laboratory for the study of Drosophila melanogaster larval behavior. It combines:
agent-based simulations of virtual larvae,
modular behavioral and neural control,
energetics and life-history models, and
standardized pipelines for analysis of both simulated and experimental locomotion data.
If you work with larval behavior – experimentally, computationally, or both – Larvaworld aims to give you a single coherent environment for simulating, analyzing and comparing behavioral datasets.
Project links
Source code (GitHub): https://github.com/nawrotlab/larvaworld
PyPI package: https://pypi.org/project/larvaworld/
Larvaworld paper (preprint): Larvaworld: A behavioral simulation and analysis platform for Drosophila larva bioRxiv 2025.06.15.659765; https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.15.659765
For the scientific background, model assumptions and validation results, please refer to the paper above and to the Theoretical Overview section of this documentation.
Citing larvaworld
Larvaworld: A behavioral simulation and analysis platform for Drosophila larva
Sakagiannis, Panagiotis; Rapp, Hannes; Jovanic, Tihana; Nawrot, Martin Paul. bioRxiv 2025.06.15.659765; https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.15.659765
BibTex:
@article {Sakagiannis2025.06.15.659765,
author = {Sakagiannis, Panagiotis and Rapp, Hannes and Jovanic, Tihana and Nawrot, Martin Paul},
title = {Larvaworld : A behavioral simulation and analysis platform for Drosophila larva},
elocation-id = {2025.06.15.659765},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.1101/2025.06.15.659765},
publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory},
URL = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2025/06/18/2025.06.15.659765},
eprint = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2025/06/18/2025.06.15.659765.full.pdf},
journal = {bioRxiv}
}