Frequency signatures: Red Tegu to Red-kneed Tarantula

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 1,705–1,728.

Red Tegu

MID

Seasonal Burrow Shutdown

Basking first • Ranging wide • Eating almost anything

Because conditions select between two genuinely different operating states, this is an adaptive system.

Red Triangle Slug

MID

A Radula Rasping the Film on Bark

Grazing • Climbing • Wet-weather

That makes it a bimodal system: wet-weather grazing and dry-weather withdrawal.

Red Wolf

LOW

Coyote Introgression Dilution

Pairing • Diluting • Continuous

Because everything about the process runs slowly, it is a low-frequency system.

Red Zebra Cichlid

LOW

False Eggs on a Fin

The female taking her eggs into her mouth immediately after laying • The male displaying yellow egg-shaped spots on his anal fin • The female nipping at those false eggs and taking in sperm, fertilising the clutch already in her mouth

Because the cycle runs over weeks, it operates as a low-frequency system.

Red-backed Fairywren

MID

Edge-Perch Color Balancer

Rhythmic • Cover-tied • Foraging

That pattern makes the Red-backed Fairywren a bimodal system: a mid-frequency, habitat-matching routine with essential high-frequency flashes of color and display.

Red-backed Poison Frog

LOW

Diet-Sequestered Alkaloid Badge

Tiny • Toxic • Unhurried

Because a chemical defence removes the need for speed or concealment, it is a low-frequency system.

Red-bearded Bee-eater

LOW

Perch-locked Intercept Flight

Still • Watching • Conserving

This architecture—long periods of low-cost monitoring punctuated by brief, high-intensity intercepts—means it structurally depends on both a low-frequency watch state and a high-frequency strike state, making it a bimodal low–high system.

Red-bellied Pacu

LOW

Teeth Built for Cracking Nuts

Rows of broad flat molar-like teeth strikingly similar to human molars • Fruit and hard nuts falling into flooded forest during the annual high water • The fish cracking those seeds, digesting some and voiding others intact far from the parent tree

Because the cycle is annual, it operates as a low-frequency system.

Red-bellied Piranha

MID

A Jaw Beyond Its Body Size

Shoaling • Scavenging • Overbuilt

That makes it a mid-frequency system: steady grouped foraging with an extreme cutting tool.

Red-bellied Titi

LOW

The Infant Attaches to the Father

Duetting at dawn • Sitting tails twined • The father carrying

Small, quiet and stable over years, this is a low-frequency system.

Red-billed Oxpecker

MID

Riding and Feeding on Living Hosts

Host-riding • Gleaning • Clinging

That makes it a bimodal system: steady foraging over the bodies of large mammals and sudden alarm flights.

Red-billed Tropicbird

MID

A Seabird Related to No Seabird

Soaring far offshore • Plunging • Shuffling back to a ledge

Continuous daily ocean foraging makes this a mid-frequency system.

Red-breasted Goose

MID

Nesting in a Falcon's Shadow

Flocking • Grazing • Commuting

That makes it a bimodal system: a daily winter commute in dense flocks and sheltered tundra nesting.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

LOW

Sticky Pitch Around the Entrance

Conifer resin collected and carried in the bill, sometimes on a flake of bark used as an applicator • Smeared in a ring around the outside and inside of the nest hole entrance • The bird flying straight in without touching the sides, while anything that lands on the rim is caught

Because the cycle is annual, it operates as a low-frequency system.

Red-breasted Parakeet

LOW

Accents That Differ by Region

Contact calls learned from surrounding birds rather than inherited • Populations in different parts of the range converging on distinct call structures • A bird's calls identifying where it came from and whether it belongs to the local flock

Because dialect change runs across generations, it operates as a low-frequency system.

Red-capped Manakin

LOW

Wing Muscle Faster Than a Hummingbird's

Feeding • Small • Fruit-eating

That makes it a bimodal system: an ordinary feeding baseline and an extremely fast display.

Red-crested Pochard

MID

Dabble, Upend and Dive

Paddling • Tipping • Going under

Steady mixed feeding on open water makes this a mid-frequency system.

Red-crowned Crane

MID

Migratory Pair-Bond Duet

Paired • Calling • Seasonal

Because the system runs on repeated coordinated display and steady foraging, it is a mid-frequency system.

Red-eared Slider

MID

Taking the Sunlit Log

Hauling out onto logs, banks and rocks to raise body temperature above the water • Occupying the best basking sites earlier, longer and more aggressively than native turtles • Forcing residents into cooler or more exposed places where digestion and egg development slow

Because the cycle is daily, it operates as a mid-frequency system.