Frequency signatures: Black-headed Ibis to Blue Button Jelly
Each card gives a species’ behavioural archetype, its frequency — how often it commits effort and how long each commitment lasts — and a waveform tracing that rhythm.
Frequency signatures
Each waveform traces one species’ working rhythm — where it spends effort, and where it waits. 2,327 species, A–Z; showing 241–264.
Black-headed Ibis
Touch-Tipped Blind Probe
Wading • Sweeping • Tactile
Because returns accumulate from many identical low-cost probes repeated for hours, it is a mid-frequency system.
Black-legged Kittiwake
Sheer Ledge, Long Commute
Ledge-holding • Colonial • Shift-sharing
That makes it a bimodal system: patient, shared attendance on the ledge and repeated foraging trips out to sea.
Black-naped Oriole
A Basket Slung Between Twigs
A horizontal fork selected near the end of a slender outer branch rather than against the trunk • Fibre, bark strips and grass woven and bound around both arms of the fork to form a deep hanging cup • The nest suspended beyond the reach of anything that cannot fly, on branches too thin to bear a climbing animal
Because the cycle is annual, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Black-naped Tern
Refraction-Corrected Shallow Entry
Hovering • Correcting • Dropping
Many cheap repeated attempts across a long day make this a mid-frequency system.
Black-necked Crane
Short Vertical Winter Descent
Descending • Returning • Seasonal
Because the cycle repeats steadily each year, it is a mid-frequency system.
Black-necked Stilt
Legs Longer Than the Competition
Wading • Deep • Uncontested
That makes it a mid-frequency system: steady deliberate feeding in a zone it has largely to itself.
Black-necked Swan
A Neck Visible Across a Lagoon
Reaching • Dabbling • Escorting
That makes it a mid-frequency system: steady surface feeding organised around reach and recognition at range.
Black-rumped Flameback
Hollow-Wood and Rattle Signalling
Drumming • Calling • Paired
Foraging and signalling run together on one continuous daily cycle, with no stored reserve to draw on and no single decisive burst, and that steady, repeated output makes the bird a mid-frequency system.
Black-shouldered Kite
Hanging Still Above One Point
Hovering • Fixed • Expensive
That makes it a bimodal system: expensive hovering and a slow controlled drop.
Black-tailed Jackrabbit
Open-country Burst Runner
Still • Watchful • Exposed
Because its survival depends on conserving energy in a vulnerable landscape and then converting that reserve into short, intense escape runs, the jackrabbit operates as a bimodal system with a low-frequency watchful baseline and a high-frequency burst-escape mode.
Black-winged Stilt
The Longest Legs of Waders
Wading in water deeper than any comparable wader can enter • Picking invertebrates from the surface and just below with a fine straight bill • Feeding on ground that shorter-legged species have to leave
Since picking recurs constantly, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Blackbuck
Tiny Territories Packed Together
Grazing open plain • Holding a small patch • Darkening with rank
This is a mid-frequency system.
Blacktip Reef Shark
Ampullae-Guided Reef Search
Never stopping • Reading electrical fields • Working a small known patch
Because the swimming and the sensing run continuously, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Blakiston's Fish Owl
Nocturnal Water-Edge Ambush
Still • Patient • Selective
Because the whole system is organized around long stretches of stillness and careful signal filtering, with energy spent only on select high-probability lunges, this owl is a distinctly low-frequency, patience-led hunter.
Blanket Octopus
Unfurled Web Size Bluff
Drifting in open water • Carrying stolen tentacles • Unfurling when pressed
Because the drifting and hunting run continuously, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Blesbok
Each Extra Head Buys Grazing Time
Grazing • Lifting the head • Grazing again
Continuous daytime grazing makes this a mid-frequency system.
Blind Cave Tetra
Eyeless Forager Reading the Water Itself
Sensing • Continuous • Sleepless
Because the system is a continuous sensory search, it is a mid-frequency system.
Blister Beetle
Cantharidin Boundary Armor
Armored • Signaled • Costly
That makes blister beetles a low-frequency system built around a durable, always-on chemical boundary that shapes interactions long before a physical fight begins.
Blobfish
Neutral-Density Gel Body
Hovering • Gelatinous • Passive
Because the whole body plan replaces effort with density matching, it is a low-frequency system.
Blood Parrot Cichlid
A Mouth That Cannot Close
Drawing food in by suction through a permanently open beak-like mouth • Failing to grip or tear anything • Feeding slowly on small sinking items
Since feeding attempts repeat through the day, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Blossom-headed Parakeet
Holes It Cannot Make
A bill built for cracking seed and climbing, not for excavating sound timber • Nest sites limited to existing holes cut by woodpeckers and barbets or produced by decay • Competition with other cavity nesters for a supply the parakeet has no way to increase
Because breeding is annual, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Blow Fly
First to the Fresh Carcass
Detecting • Racing • Egg-laying
That makes it a bimodal system: a fast arrival race and a steady collective feeding phase.
Blue Bird-of-paradise
Upside-Down Plume Fan and Mechanical Song
Fruit-eating • Canopy • Mid-montane
That makes it a bimodal system: canopy fruit-feeding and short, inverted display.
Blue Button Jelly
A Wind-Driven Disc of Divided Labour
Drifting • Colonial • Continuous
Because the system drifts and feeds continuously without any rest cycle or active travel, it is a low-frequency system.