Frequency signatures: Atlantic Cod to Azure-winged Magpie

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 121–144.

Atlantic Cod

LOW

Most Eggs, Biggest Fish

Growing large over many years • Producing egg numbers that rise steeply with body size • Releasing them into the water column and providing nothing further

Since generations take years, it operates as a low-frequency system.

Atlantic Herring

MID

The Neighbour-Rule School

Synchronised • Dense • Rule-following

That makes the herring a mid-frequency system: rhythmic, networked and powerful only as a coordinated group.

Atlantic Mackerel

HIGH

Swimming Because It Cannot Stop

Swimming continuously from hatching to death • Driving water over the gills by forward motion rather than by pumping • Having no swim bladder, so stopping means sinking

Since the tailbeat continues every second of life, it operates as a high-frequency system.

Atlantic Puffin

MID

Wings Compromised Between Two Fluids

Whirring • Diving • Carrying back

Repeated diving and provisioning makes this a mid-frequency system.

Atlantic Sailfish

HIGH

The High-Speed Slash Engine

Explosive • Slashing • Short-window

That makes the sailfish a high-frequency system: explosive, short-horizon and dependent on recovery between attacks.

Atlantic Salmon

LOW

Station-Holding Parr, Returning Sea-Grown Spawner

Station-holding • Drift-feeding • Riverine

Because the system switches from a patient river phase to a sea-going phase, it is a phase-change system.

Atlantic Tarpon

MID

A Lung That Buys Dead Water

Cruising • Rolling to gulp air • Running hard

Continuous cruising and feeding makes this a mid-frequency system.

Atlantic Trumpetfish

MID

Coral-Line Hover Stalker

Rhythmic • Stalking • Alignment

This produces a mid-frequency system built on rhythmic, repeated ambushes and constant micro-adjustments around coral cover, rather than rare huge efforts or continuous high-speed motion.

Atlantic Wolffish

MID

Teeth Shed Every Year

Crushing urchins, whelks and crabs with conical front teeth and molar plates • Grinding the shell fragments on a toothed palate • Feeding steadily on armoured prey nothing else takes

Applying the structural test, a weeks-long toothless non-feeding state is a distinct architecture, making it bimodal.

Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross

LOW

Island-Anchored Ocean Loop

Soaring • Island-tied • Biennial-ish

Because enormous cheap movement is anchored to a very small fixed point on a slow reproductive clock, it is a low-frequency system.

Atlas Beetle

LOW

Three Horns Closing as One Caliper

Tunnelling • Feeding • Sizing

That makes it a bimodal system: a long hidden accumulation and a brief contest only some are built to enter.

Atlas Moth

LOW

An Adult With No Mouth

Feeding • Storing • Spinning

That makes it a bimodal system: a long feeding accumulation and a short sealed burn with no income at all.

Australasian Swamphen

MID

Eating With a Foot

Pulling up a reed stem or a rhizome • Holding it in one foot raised to the bill • Stripping and chewing the soft base and discarding the rest

Since items are processed continuously, it operates as a mid-frequency system.

Australian Box Jellyfish

LOW

Invisible Contact Net

Drifting • Veiled • Perimeter

This makes the box jellyfish a bimodal system: a low-frequency, drifting invisible boundary punctuated by rare, high-frequency bursts of intense, localized attack the moment that boundary is crossed.

Australian Brush-turkey

MID

Compost Heat for Buried Eggs

Raking • Probing • Adjusting

That makes it a bimodal system: daily mound management and long incubation with no parent sitting on the eggs.

Australian Funnel-web Spider

LOW

Trip Lines Around a Burrow

A silk-lined burrow with a collapsed funnel entrance under a log or in a bank • Irregular silk trip lines radiating outward across the ground from that entrance • The spider waiting just inside, striking outward the instant a line is disturbed

Because strikes are infrequent, it operates as a low-frequency system.

Australian Green Tree Frog

MID

Skin That Fights Infection

Secreting a mixture of peptides across the whole skin surface • Killing bacteria and fungi on contact with it • Depending on that chemistry because a permeable skin cannot be sealed

Since secretion is continuous, it operates as a mid-frequency system.

Australian Magpie

MID

Acoustic Neighborhood Mesh

Vocal • Patrol • Networked

Because their survival comes from this steady rhythm of calling, listening, and patrolling—neither slow-hoarding nor pure bursts—the magpie is best understood as a mid-frequency system built on ongoing acoustic neighborhood maintenance.

Australian Pelican

LOW

Breeding When the Desert Fills

Waiting through years in coastal and inland waters without breeding • Detecting and travelling hundreds of kilometres inland when monsoon rain fills Lake Eyre • Breeding in enormous colonies on the temporary lake and leaving as it dries

Because the trigger is irregular and rare, it operates as a low-frequency system.

Australian Pineapplefish

MID

A Lamp of Living Bacteria

A pair of light organs on the lower jaw housing dense colonies of luminous bacteria • The bacteria supplied with nutrients and oxygen by the fish and producing continuous light in return • That light shuttered and directed by the fish to illuminate small shrimp in the dark

Because hunting is nightly, it operates as a mid-frequency system.