Scientifically, the term buffalo is incorrect for the North American species; its proper Latin name is Bison bison. However, common usage has made the term buffalo an acceptable synonym for the American bison. (from The American Buffalo in Transition, by J. Albert Rorabacher.).
Life cycle. Life cycle, in biology, the series of changes that the members of a species undergo as they pass from the beginning of a given developmental stage to the inception of that same developmental stage in a subsequent generation.
a recurrent series of events or processes in plants and animals: a life cycle, a growth cycle, a metabolic cycle 11. (physics) a continuous change or a sequence of changes in the state of a system that leads to the restoration of the system to its original state after a finite period of time