X染色體
Luke Hutchison noticed that a number of possible ancestors on the X chromosome inheritance line at a given ancestral generation follows the Fibonacci sequence. A male individual has an X chromosome, which he received from his mother, and a Y chromosome, which he received from his father. The male counts as the "origin" of his own X chromosome (formula_1), and at his parents' generation, his X chromosome came from a single parent (formula_2). The male's mother received one X chromosome from her mother (the son's maternal grandmother), and one from her father (the son's maternal grandfather), so two grandparents contributed to the male descendant's X chromosome (formula_3). The maternal grandfather received his X chromosome from his mother, and the maternal grandmother received X chromosomes from both of her parents, so three great-grandparents contributed to the male descendant's X chromosome (formula_4). Five great-great-grandparents contributed to the male descendant's X chromosome (formula_5), etc. (Note that this assumes that all ancestors of a given descendant are independent, but if any genealogy is traced far enough back in time, ancestors begin to appear on multiple lines of the genealogy, until eventually, a population founder appears on all lines of the genealogy.)