Frequency signatures: Snowshoe Hare to Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat
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 1,921–1,944.
Snowshoe Hare
Season-Timed Coat and Feet
Rhythmic • Seasonal • Fitting
This makes the snowshoe hare a bimodal system, with a primary mid-frequency pattern of ongoing seasonal and daily adjustment backed by brief high-frequency escape bursts.
Snowy Egret
Foot-Stir Prey Flush
Stirring • Flushing • Striking
That makes it a mid-frequency system: rhythmic and repeatable, built around producing many small detectable events rather than searching for rare visible ones.
Snowy Owl
Breeding Wherever the Lemmings Peaked
Scanning tundra • Following the rodent cycle • Breeding somewhere new
This is a mid-frequency system.
Snowy Plover
An Exposed Scrape Hidden by Colour
Incubating • Crouching • Cryptic
That makes it a bimodal system: still, cryptic incubation and run-and-stop foraging.
Snowy Sheathbill
Colony-Edge Krill Theft
Walking • Intercepting • Constant
Because the system runs on many small interceptions repeated continuously rather than on reserves or bursts, it is a mid-frequency system.
Snubnose Pompano
Growing in Almost Any Salinity
Regulating internal salt balance across water from nearly fresh to full seawater • Continuing to grow rather than merely surviving across that whole range • Occupying estuaries, lagoons and open coast without a physiological transition
Because compensation is continuous, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Sociable Weaver
Communal Thatch Fortress
Rhythmic • Cooperative • Site‑fixed
That makes Sociable Weaver a mid-frequency system: its defining pattern is ongoing, rhythmic, cooperative work anchored to a fixed home rather than rare deep reserves or explosive bursts.
Sockeye Salmon
Plankton Grazer That Spends Itself in Red
Plankton-feeding • Schooling • Growing
Because the system is years of steady feeding ended by one intense, terminal return, it is a phase-change system.
Socorro Dove
A Ground Dove With No Cats to Fear
Ground-feeding • Walking • Unwary
Because the system was a steady daily round of ground foraging, it is a mid-frequency system.
Song Sparrow
A Repertoire Learned Next Door
Learning several song types as a young bird • Matching the type a neighbour just sang • Escalating or retreating on the basis of the match
Since exchanges occur within seconds, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Sooty Shearwater
A Figure of Eight Around an Ocean
Looping • Wind-following • Continuous
That makes it a low-frequency system: continuous, economical travel with almost nothing spent on propulsion.
Sooty-headed Bulbul
Fruit-and-Insect Switching
Switching • Edge-dwelling • Sociable
That makes it a mid-frequency system: steady, rhythmic and reliable because it is never committed to a single resource.
South American Coati
Snout-Led Band Sweep
Rooting • Banded • Reversible
That makes it a mid-frequency system: steady, wide and continuously searching rather than waiting.
South American Tapir
Carrying Big Seeds Far
Swallowing whole fruits and large seeds no smaller animal can take • Walking kilometres through forest before voiding them • Depositing them in dung far from the parent tree
Since the cycle runs across years, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Southeastern Five-lined Skink
A Tail Meant to Be Struck
Carrying a vivid blue tail as a juvenile that draws the eye away from the head • Shedding it at a fracture plane when it is seized • Leaving it writhing for minutes while the animal leaves
Since encounters recur, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Southern African Porcupine
Reversed Quill Charge
Digging • Nocturnal • Unhurried
That makes it a bimodal system: a cheap unhurried baseline holding one brief, expensive and deliberately advertised defence.
Southern Alligator Lizard
A Fold of Skin Along Each Side
Threading • Expandable • Detachable
That makes it a mid-frequency system: steadily active in confined spaces with protection that does not cost mobility.
Southern Black Widow
Gumfoot Lines Under Tension
Anchored • Waiting • Disproportionate
Minimal expenditure and a durable structure make this a single low-frequency system.
Southern Brown Bandicoot
Scrubland Snout Excavator
Hidden • Sheltered • Waiting
This combination of sheltered downtime and repeated, careful digging makes them a bimodal system with a low-frequency hiding mode and a mid-frequency, rhythmic foraging mode.
Southern Cassowary
Large-Seed Gut Passage
Walking • Swallowing • Depositing
Because the whole system is a steady daily conversion of fruit into dispersal, it is a mid-frequency system.
Southern Elephant Seal
Ocean-to-Shore Fasting Cycle
Massive • Resting • Withholding
That creates a bimodal rhythm: a high-frequency intake engine at depth, followed by a strongly low-frequency fasting state that dominates the cycle and defines Deep Fasting.
Southern Flying Squirrel
Nocturnal Canopy Glider
Rhythmic • Corridor • Forager
This makes its system bimodal: a mid-frequency, rhythmic nocturnal glide-commute that can flip into brief high-frequency escape launches when danger compresses time and distance.
Southern Ground Hornbill
Helper-Raised Decade-Long Recruitment
Helped • Slow • Across decades
Because the whole reproductive system runs on a multi-year cycle, it is a low-frequency system.
Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat
Warren-Buffered Low Burn
Burrowed • Slow-burning • Nocturnal
Because a very low-cost body is protected by a durable built structure, it is a low-frequency system.