Continuous spatial automata have a continuum of locations. The state of a location is a finite number of real numbers. Time is also continuous, and the state evolves according to differential equations. One important example is reaction–diffusion textures, differential equations proposed by Alan Turing to explain how chemical reactions could create the stripes on zebras and spots on leopards. When these are approximated by cellular automata, they often yield similar patterns. MacLennan [http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/contin-comp.html] considers continuous spatial automata as a model of computation.