Frequency signatures: Degu to Discus Fish
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 625–648.
Degu
A Burrow Dug in Company
Diurnal • Communal • Talkative
That makes it a mid-frequency system: steady, social and continuously coordinated.
Demoiselle Crane
Thermals Over the Highest Passes
Walking • Circling • Crossing
Sustained walking and long seasonal travel make this a mid-frequency system.
Denison Barb
Streamlined Schooling Vector
Aligned • Rhythmic • Schooling
This produces a mid-frequency system: rhythmic, coordinated, and based on ongoing shared movement rather than extremes of stillness or sudden sprinting.
Desert Cottontail
Eating the Food Twice
Fermenting plant material in a large caecum where bacteria break down cellulose • Passing soft nutrient-rich caecotrophs and re-ingesting them directly • Digesting those a second time in the stomach and small intestine where the released nutrients can be absorbed
Because the cycle runs daily, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Desert Dormouse
Cold-Triggered Metabolic Shutdown
Torpid • Sheltered • Frugal
Because the main move is withdrawal and saving rather than any burst of activity, the operating rhythm is a low-frequency one, built around shutting demand down before reserves run out.
Desert Hedgehog
Nocturnal Burrowed Forager
Rhythmic • Cautious • Foraging
That makes it a mid-frequency system: a rhythmic, place-anchored operating pattern built on steady, repeatable activity rather than deep dormancy or explosive sprinting.
Desert Horned Viper
A Warning Made by Rubbing Scales
Shuffling into sand • Waiting • Rasping if approached
Motionless waiting throughout makes this a low-frequency system.
Desert Iguana
Foraging in Heat That Excludes Rivals
Heat-active • Herbivorous • Watchful
That makes it a bimodal system: hot-day foraging and a seasonal retreat underground.
Desert Kangaroo Rat
A Water Budget Balanced Without Drinking
Burrowed • Conserving • Daytime
That makes it a bimodal system: a daytime water-saving retreat and nocturnal foraging.
Desert Locust
Crowding Morphology Switch
Solitary • Dispersed • Cautious
Because crossing this density threshold rewrites how the entire system is built and how it spends energy, this is best understood as a phase-change system with a mid-frequency solitary baseline and a high-frequency gregarious swarm state.
Desert Pocket Mouse
Dry Seeds Carried Outside the Mouth
Foraging • Pouching • Nocturnal
That makes it a bimodal system: nightly seed collection and long sealed rest below ground.
Desert Rain Frog
Fog-Damp Sand Burrow
Buried • Fog-fed • Minimal
Because the whole system runs on minimal expenditure inside a narrow band of damp sand, it is a low-frequency system.
Desert Woodrat
A House Cemented by Its Builder
Sheltering • Housebound • Buffered
That makes it a bimodal system: long sheltered days inside and short nightly gathering runs.
Devil's Flower Mantis
Petal-Mimic Strike Perch
Petal-still • Attracting • Patient
Because near-zero waiting alternates with two different instantaneous commitments, this is a bimodal system.
Dhole
Communal Den Provisioning
Provisioning • Communal • Daily
Because provisioning runs as a steady repeated daily cycle, it is a mid-frequency system.
Diamondback Terrapin
Salt-Gland Freshwater Skim
Tidal • Durable • Slow-turnover
Because the animal trades speed and turnover for durable occupation of a chemically difficult niche, it is a low-frequency system.
Diana Monkey
Alarm Calls That Name the Predator
Foraging • Canopy • Associating
That makes it a bimodal system: canopy foraging and brief alarm events.
Dibatag
Bipedal Stretch Browsing
Standing • Reaching • Waterless
Because feeding is a steady repeated cycle of standing, taking and settling, it is a mid-frequency system.
Dibbler
Litter-Probing Insect Hunt
Probing • Small-prey • Nightly
Because returns come from many small captures repeated nightly, it is a mid-frequency system.
Dice Snake
Submerged Crevice Fish Search
Basking • Diving • Fish-searching
Each dive is limited by body heat and breath, so warming on land and searching underwater alternate many times a day, and that repeated cycle settles the snake into a mid-frequency pattern.
Differential Grasshopper
Soil-Banked Egg Outbreak
Chewing through the season • Laying pods in soil • Surviving as numbers
Because the individual chews steadily through a season at one unvarying tempo, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Dingy Bushbrown
Understory Shade Skimmer
Shaded • Quiet • Understory
That makes it a single-mode, low-frequency system built around living in the calm shade beneath busier movement above.
Dione Ratsnake
Generalist Coil Across Climates
Generalist • Constricting • Wide-ranging
With one repeatable method applied day after day to whatever local prey appears, and no reliance on stored reserves or explosive strikes, the snake works as a steady mid-frequency forager.
Discus Fish
Fry Grazing the Parent's Skin
Hovering • Adjusting • Feeding young
Minimal movement and very high parental cost make this a single low-frequency system.