Frequency signatures: Philippine Sailfin Lizard to Pink-spotted Hawkmoth
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 1,585–1,608.
Philippine Sailfin Lizard
Flattened-Toe Water Sprint
Riverside • Escaping • Daily
Because the daily pattern of basking, feeding and escaping repeats steadily, it is a mid-frequency system.
Philippine Tarsier
Eyes Too Big to Move
Clinging • Turning • Waiting
Long motionless watching between occasional leaps makes this a single low-frequency system.
Picasso Bug
Compact Aposematic Shell
Constant • Visible • Signalling
That makes this a single, mid-frequency system: a continuous, always-available warning display rather than a slow reserve or a short explosive burst.
Picasso Moth
Hieroglyphic Wing Canvas
Patterned • Signalling • Display
This produces a mid-frequency system: the signal is neither a rare, conserved burst nor a frantic flicker, but a steady, always-available display encoded into the moth’s structure.
Pichi Armadillo
Armour Wedged in a Winter Burrow
Rooting • Digging • Fattening
That makes it a phase-change system: seasonal foraging and winter shutdown.
Pied Avocet
Upturned Bill Scything the Silt
Sweeping • Tactile • Rhythmic
That makes it a mid-frequency system: a steady rhythmic sweep processing volume rather than selecting targets.
Pied Butcherbird
Impaled Larder Above Ground
Watching from a bare branch • Dropping on prey • Wedging it into a fork
Since watching and singing run together through daylight, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Pied Crow
Nesting on Structures, Not Trees
Building on pylons, poles and planted trees • Feeding along road verges • Spreading wherever both appear together
Since foraging turns over daily, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Pied Cuckoo
A Chick That Stays
Eggs laid in babbler nests that closely match the hosts' own in colour and size • The cuckoo chick hatching earlier and growing faster but leaving the host chicks alive in the nest • Out-begging its nestmates with a louder call and a wider gape so it takes most of what arrives
Because the cycle is annual, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Pied Fantail
Flushing Insects With the Tail
Moving restlessly through foliage with the tail fanned and swung • Startling insects into flight with the flash of black and white • Taking them in the air before they can settle again
Since the movement is continuous, it operates as a high-frequency system.
Pied Kingfisher
Perchless Hover
Hovering • Fixed • Committed
That makes it a high-frequency system: continuous expensive effort with no economical setting.
Pied Paddy Skimmer
Dark Patches Painted on Glass
Broad opaque dark patches of pigment laid into otherwise transparent wing membrane • Those patches held out and displayed during territorial encounters over water • Rivals assessing the patches directly, so disputes over perching sites are settled by display rather than by collision
Because encounters recur constantly, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Pig-nosed Turtle
Snorkel-Snout Flipper Rowing
Flippered • Submerged • Continuous
Because both the swimming and the breathing run as a continuous steady rhythm, it is a mid-frequency system.
Pigmy Rattlesnake
Faint-Buzz Ambush Viper
Coiled • Waiting • Quiet-warning
Long, cheap waits and close-range warnings form a low baseline, and the strike is a separate high-frequency burst, so the two states together make a bimodal system.
Pika
Cut, Dried and Stacked
Cutting • Curing • Carrying
Continuous urgent harvesting makes this a mid-frequency system.
Pileated Woodpecker
Chisel-Bill Cavity Cutting
Hammering • Rhythmic • Deep-working
That makes it a mid-frequency system: steady, repetitive and defined by opening access rather than by speed.
Pin-tailed Whydah
Borrowed Brood Pipeline
Embedded • Imitative • Dependent
The result is a bimodal system: a steady, host-embedded dependence mode that carries most of the life-history load, plus a high-frequency display-and-mating mode that briefly spikes to secure access to those borrowed nests.
Pine Marten
A Predator One Squirrel Remembers
Climbing • Continuous • Familiar
That makes it a mid-frequency system: continuously active and acting through recognition as much as through capture.
Pinecone Fish
Bacterial Jaw Lantern
Armoured • Lit • Nocturnal
Because a low-cost body borrows both its weapon and its light, it is a low-frequency system.
Pink Fairy Armadillo
Rear-Plate Tunnel Sealing
Sand-swimming • Sealed • Nocturnal
Because the animal moves slowly through sand and rarely surfaces, it is a low-frequency system.
Pink Pigeon
Ten-Founder Genetic Bottleneck
Supplemented • Inbred • Continuous
Because the whole system runs on a slow supported cycle, it is a low-frequency system.
Pink See-through Fantasia
Mud Eater That Lifts Off to Move
Deposit-feeding • Benthic • Slow
That makes it a bimodal system: slow sediment feeding on the seabed and swimming relocation through the water above it.
Pink-necked Green Pigeon
A Gizzard That Grinds
Fruit swallowed whole and passed into a heavily muscled gizzard containing grit • Seeds ground and crushed there rather than passed intact through the gut • The bird taking the nutrition in the seed itself, so it removes the seeds it consumes instead of dispersing them
Because feeding is steady, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Pink-spotted Hawkmoth
A Proboscis Past the Body
Hovering in front of a flower after dark • Uncoiling a proboscis longer than the body into a deep corolla • Taking nectar no shorter-tongued insect can reach
Since wingbeats and visits recur constantly, it operates as a high-frequency system.