Frequency signatures: Cuban Tody to Decorator Crab
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 601–624.
Cuban Tody
Upward Sally to the Leaf Underside
Perching • Scanning • Sallying
That makes it a single-mode system: an unbroken rhythm of watching and upward sallies.
Cuckoo Wasp
Armour Rolled Into a Ball
Entering the nest of a solitary bee or wasp to lay in it • Being attacked by the owner on the way in or out • Rolling into a ball with the concave underside enclosing the legs, inside a cuticle thick enough that stings do not penetrate
Since nest entries recur, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Cuckoo Wrasse
Females That Become Males Later
Living as a reddish-orange female with dark marks near the tail • Spawning in a group over rocky ground • Being one of many similar fish
Because the change happens once and cannot reverse, it operates as a phase-change system.
Culpeo
A Wild Dog Spanning the Whole Andes
Denning • Hidden • Resting
The system is bimodal, sheltered rest and a sustained, opportunistic roaming mode.
Cunner
A Fish Dormant in Winter
Foraging over rocky reef and wrecks through the warm months • Picking mussels, barnacles and crustaceans from hard surfaces • Defending small areas and cleaning other fish
Applying the structural test, these are two physiologies, making this a bimodal system.
Curl-crested Aracari
Curled Crest Display Plumage
Ongoing • Signalling • Presence
That makes the curl-crested aracari a mid-frequency system: a steady, repeating signal woven into regular activity instead of a single slow reserve or a brief high-speed burst.
Cyclodes Moth
A Proboscis That Drills
A proboscis stiffened and armed at the tip with barbs and cutting ridges rather than built only for sucking • That tip worked through the intact skin of a ripening fruit by twisting and pressing • Juice drawn out from inside a fruit that no ordinary nectar-feeding moth could open at all
Because the feeding is nightly, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Daddy Long-Legs Spider
Plucking a Rival's Web
Hanging inverted in a loose tangle • Entering a resident spider's web and vibrating the silk • Killing from beyond reach with very long legs
Since hunting recurs nightly, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Dall Sheep
Horns That Record Every Winter
Growing horn continuously in summer and almost not at all in winter • Leaving a visible constriction at each winter • Carrying a readable record of age and of every hard year on the head
Since the cycle is annual, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Dama Gazelle
Long Legs Tracking the Sahel Rains
Browsing • Nomadic • Vigilant
Because it is built on slow browsing and seasonal movement, it is a low-frequency system.
Damaraland Mole-rat
Subterranean Role Grid
Stable • Sheltered • Core
Because the whole system depends on a stable, low-risk base overlaid with coordinated work pulses in the same hidden network, this is a bimodal system with a low-frequency shelter core and a mid-frequency labor rhythm.
Damsel Bug
A Sticky Front Leg
Front legs thickened and held folded, used to seize rather than to walk • A dense pad of fine adhesive hairs on the underside of the tibia gripping the prey's surface directly • The captured insect held by adhesion rather than by force while the beak is inserted
Because captures recur through the day, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Damselfly
Slow-Flutter Perch Gleaning
Fluttering between stems • Hanging in the air • Picking prey off a leaf
Because the flying and gleaning run continuously through warm daylight, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Danube River Snail
Live Birth, Not Eggs
Retaining developing embryos in a brood pouch for months • Releasing fully formed shelled young a few millimetres across • Producing few offspring, each of them already viable
Since the cycle runs annually, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Dark Fishing Spider
The Surface as a Web
Resting at the edge with front legs touching the water film • Reading the ripples that a struggling insect makes • Running across the surface to reach it and diving beneath when threatened
Since ripple events recur through the night, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Dark Sword-grass
Night-Wind Seasonal Relay
Nocturnal • Wind-borne • Seasonal
Because the movement is built from many similar night flights, repeated generation after generation in a seasonal back-and-forth, the system runs as a regular, repeating rhythm rather than a single burst or a long reserve, which places it in the mid-frequency band.
Dark-eyed Junco
Evolving Inside a Human Lifetime
A population establishing on a coastal campus where winters are mild and irrigation keeps food available • Selection there favouring a longer breeding season, more parental effort and less white in the tail • Measurable change in those traits within decades rather than over evolutionary time
Because the change accumulates over generations, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Darkling Beetle
Arid-Shell Resource Frugalist
Frugal • Shielded • Opportunist
This makes Tenebrionidae a low-frequency system: dense-bodied, conservative with water and energy, and tuned to a slow, recurring dry-ground economy rather than rapid, volatile bursts.
Darwin’s Bark Spider
Aerial Bridge Webworks
Rhythmic • Structural • Spanning
That rhythm of ongoing structural investment and maintenance around a giant web makes this a mid-frequency, rhythmic system.
Darwin's Fox
Dense-Forest Small-Range Foraging
Omnivorous • Understorey • Daily
Because foraging runs as a steady daily round rather than in bursts, it is a mid-frequency system.
Darwin's Frog
Vocal Sac Nursery Chamber
Sheltering • Selective • Carried
Because the whole reproductive strategy depends on steady, cautious, body-based shelter rather than bursts of activity or constant ranging, Darwin’s frog operates as a single, low-frequency system built around patient, carried protection.
De Brazza's Monkey
A Face Readable Only Up Close
Foraging near water • Freezing • Moving only when unwatched
Slow, secretive and largely stationary, this is a low-frequency system.
Death's-head Hawkmoth
Pharyngeal Squeak and Skull Flash
Shivered-warm • Fast • Short-lived
A few weeks of life, an expensive engine and a sugar-rich raid make this a single high-frequency system.
Decorator Crab
Reef-Crafted Camouflage Coat
Rhythmic • Context-tuned • Masking
Because the crab’s survival depends on this ongoing, context-matched maintenance of a borrowed coat plus well-timed movement, its system runs as a coordinated, rhythmic mid-frequency pattern rather than a single slow reserve or a pure speed burst.