Frequency signatures: Great White Pelican to Greater Siren
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 985–1,008.
Great White Pelican
Pouch That Needs Crowded Fish
Lining up • Driving • Dipping together
Continuous coordinated group work makes this a mid-frequency system.
Great White Shark
Warm-Muscle Vertical Ambush
Patrolling • Warm • Oceanic
Because a warm steady patrol supports a rare, total upward strike, this is a bimodal system.
Great-tailed Grackle
Expanding Into New Ground
Occupying irrigated farmland, car parks, city squares and anywhere with water and waste • Nesting colonially in ornamental trees and roosting in thousands • Following irrigation and settlement north across a continent
Since foraging and social interactions recur constantly, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Greater Adjutant
Bare-Headed Carcass Processing
Scavenging • Bare-headed • Daily
Because feeding runs as a steady daily cycle, it is a mid-frequency system.
Greater Amberjack
Built for Sustained Pursuit
Cruising in open water above reefs and wrecks • Driving down a shoal until individuals tire • Turning on the ones that fall behind
Since pursuit is continuous, it operates as a high-frequency system.
Greater Bamboo Lemur
Cyanide-Tolerant Bamboo Feeding
Tolerant • Bamboo-bound • Daily
Because feeding and processing both run slowly, it is a low-frequency system.
Greater Bee Fly
Eggs Thrown Into Another's Burrow
A female hovering over the ground near solitary bee nest entrances rather than landing at them • Eggs coated in dust or sand picked up into an abdominal chamber to add weight • Those eggs flicked from the air towards or into the burrow entrance while the fly never touches the ground
Because the season is short, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Greater Bilby
Many-Burrow Soil Turnover
Digging • Rotating • Nightly
Because returns come from many small repeated excavations, it is a mid-frequency system.
Greater Bird-of-paradise
Canopy Lek Plume Raising
Attending • Displaying • Inherited
Because the system runs on repeated daily performance at a fixed location, it is a mid-frequency system.
Greater Bulldog Bat
Hunting a Ripple, Not a Fish
Flying low over water • Reading the surface • Raking with the feet
This is a mid-frequency system.
Greater Fairy Armadillo
Subsurface Shield Burrower
Sheltered • Submerged • Cautious
Because its whole system is built for staying buried, buffered and conservative rather than making large, exposed bursts, it operates as a low-frequency, shelter-anchored system.
Greater Flamingo
Inverted Bill, Piston Tongue
Head-down • Pumping • Unhurried
Continuous rhythmic pumping in hostile water makes this a mid-frequency system.
Greater Glider
Elbow-to-Ankle Membrane Drop
Leaf-fed • Nocturnal • Gliding
Because the animal earns little and therefore spends carefully, moving mostly by falling, it is a low-frequency system.
Greater Grison
Not Stopping Once It Starts
Pressing • Paired • Undeterred
That makes it a high-frequency system: continuous, insistent and expensive to run.
Greater Hedgehog Tenrec
Spiny Generalist That Lets Its Temperature Fall
Nocturnal • Foraging • Spiny
Because it switches seasonally between active nightly foraging and extended torpor, the system is a phase-change system.
Greater Honeyguide
A Wax-Eater That Recruits Nest-Breakers
Guiding • Chattering • Leading
That makes it a bimodal system: active, conspicuous guiding and quiet waiting for the opened comb.
Greater Kudu
Spirals That Can Lock
Browsing • Listening • Contesting
Continuous selective browsing makes this a mid-frequency system.
Greater Mouse-deer
Drumming the Ground With the Hooves
Frozen • Tiny • Understorey
That makes it a bimodal system: near-total stillness and a short percussive signal.
Greater Painted-snipe
Shallow-Edge Foraging Frame
Rhythmic • Cautious • Edge-led
This makes them a mid-frequency system: not built for rare dramatic bursts or heavy long-term storage, but for ongoing, rhythmic, cautious use of a specific habitat band where food, shelter and risk are continuously balanced.
Greater Prairie-Chicken
Grassland Lek Display Engine
Hidden • Foraging • Conserving
The species needs both modes: the low, concealed rhythm to survive most days, and the regular, place-bound lek ritual to secure mates and territory, so its system is best understood as bimodal with a low baseline and a coordinated mid-frequency display mode.
Greater Rhea
Male-Incubated Crèche
Guarding • Pooled • Watchful
That makes the rhea a mid-frequency system: steady, coordinated and organised around continuous protection of a shared investment.
Greater Roadrunner
Ground-Chase Leg Drive
Running • Desert-thrifty • Persistent
That makes it a mid-frequency system: rhythmic and repeatable, built around sustained ground pursuit paid for with energy saved elsewhere.
Greater Sage-Grouse
Open-steppe Display Engine
Covered • Cautious • Foraging
Because their lives alternate between a dominant low-exposure, cover-hugging routine and a recurring, structured display phase on open ground, the system is best read as bimodal: a low-frequency shelter–forage mode paired with a mid-frequency, rhythmic arena mode.
Greater Siren
A Cocoon of Shed Skin
Swimming • Rooting • Feeding
That makes it an adaptive system: one body running either continuous aquatic foraging or a sealed, near-suspended hold, depending on whether the water is there.