Animals : {Generations}

The Fibonacci sequence has been used to describe patterns taking into account time as a dimension. Two groups examined were rabbits and bees.

Fibonacci himself proposed how the growth of a population of rabbits would display the Fibonacci sequence over time. in Fibonacci's scenario, in the first month there is one pair of baby rabbits, one male and one female. It is assumed that the rabbits mature after one month and from then one reproduce monthly, giving birth to another pair of rabbits, one male and one female.

Over time a pattern evolves. In any given month the number of pairs of baby rabbits, the number of pairs of adult rabbits, and the total number of rabbits will be three consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci sequence. Also, tracking each element (adult rabbits, baby rabbits, or total rabbits) will yield the numbers of the Fibonacci sequence in order.

The genealogy of a male bee follows a similar pattern, in reverse order. This is because male bees come from unfertilized eggs, whereas female bees come from fertilized ones. Thus, a male bee has only a mother, whereas a female bee has a mother and a father.

So if we start with one male bee, our first generation will have one bee in it. The generation before it will be only one bee, as well- his mother. The generation before that will have two bees, the female bee's mother and father. The generation before that will have three bees- the mother of the male bee and the two parents of the female bee. The total number of bees per generation follow the Fibonacci sequence. One sees a similar pattern when examining only the female bees or male bees per generation.
bees and rabbits
Downwards in the tree: {Animals}


Sources use on this page: Koshy, Thomas. Bee image <pelotes.jea.com
>; rabbit image <hedweb.com>. See bibliography.