Frequency signatures: Whooping Crane to Woylie
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 2,257–2,280.
Whooping Crane
Costume-Reared Chick Imprinting
Reared • Disguised • Every generation
Because everything runs at a very low rate, it is a low-frequency system.
Wild Boar
Turning Over the Ground Itself
Driving a hardened snout disc into soil and levering it upward • Exposing roots, tubers, invertebrates and fungi • Leaving turned ground that changes what grows there next
Since rooting bouts recur constantly, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Wild Turkey
Roost-Backed Panoramic Watch
Scratching leaf litter • Heads up in rotation • Up a tree by dusk
Because the watching and the feeding proceed together through every daylight hour, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Wild Yak
Oxygen-Dense Blood at Altitude
Thick-coated • Slow • High plateau
Because the whole system runs at a steady low output, it is a low-frequency system.
Willow Tit
Its Own Hole in Soft Wood
Finding a standing dead stem soft enough to work • Chipping out a cavity over days and carrying the chips away • Nesting only in a hole it made itself
Since excavation happens once a year, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Willow Warbler
Every Feather Replaced Twice
Moulting the entire plumage after breeding in Europe • Moulting the entire plumage again on the wintering grounds in Africa • Carrying feathers that are never more than a few months old
Since each moult is a months-long process within an annual cycle, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Wilson's Bird-of-paradise
Light-Cleared Display Court
Clearing • Displaying • Daily
Because the system runs on steady preparation and repeated daily display, it is a mid-frequency system.
Wilson's Phalarope
Females Court, Males Incubate
Spinning • Picking • Fattening
That makes it a bimodal system: steady spin-feeding and fattening, and a short, intense season of female competition.
Wilson's Snipe
Camouflaged Mud Sensor
Still • Hidden • Probing
Because its whole system is built around a dominant low-frequency, camouflaged probing state with a structurally crucial high-frequency escape burst, Wilson’s Snipe operates as a bimodal low-and-high frequency system.
Wilson's Storm Petrel
Hovering on Feet That Touch the Sea
Pattering • Hovering • Surface-picking
That makes it a bimodal system: steady surface foraging at sea and a sheltered nocturnal breeding phase.
Winter White Dwarf Hamster
Changing Coat by Light
A grey-brown summer coat with a dark dorsal stripe, full body mass and normal nightly activity
The two states are genuinely distinct systems, so it operates as a bimodal system.
Wire-tailed Manakin
Wire Filaments Brushed in Lek Displays
Sallying • Fruit-eating • Understorey
The system is bimodal: MID fruit foraging and HIGH display bouts.
Wolf Eel
Front Canines, Back Molars
Den-bound • Slow • Crushing
Very low output against very hard food makes this a single low-frequency system.
Wolverine
Snowshoe-Foot Carcass Cache
Ranging • Caching • Relentless
Because the system runs on relentless continuous travel and storage rather than on bursts, it is a mid-frequency system.
Wonderpus Octopus
A Tent Thrown Over Every Burrow
Burrowed • Watching • Sheltered
The system is bimodal: sheltered waiting in the burrow and a sustained, methodical foraging mode at dawn and dusk.
Wood Duck
Cavity-Nest First Drop
Cavity-nesting • Wetland-fed • Sheltered
That makes it a mid-frequency system: a steady wetland rhythm containing one decisive transition.
Wood Frog
The Freeze-Threshold Switch
Active • Feeding • Breeding
That makes the wood frog a phase-change system, switching from a mid-frequency active state into a near-zero frozen state when temperature crosses the line.
Wood Stork
Depending on the Water Going Down
Wading with the bill open • Sweeping • Snapping on contact
This is a mid-frequency system.
Wood Turtle
Winter in the Stream, Summer in the Fields
Submerged • Streamside • Overwintering
The system switches between an aquatic winter phase and a productive terrestrial summer phase.
Woodlouse
A Sealed Brood Chamber
Overlapping plates on the underside of the female forming a sealed chamber • That chamber filled with fluid in which the eggs and early young develop • The whole aquatic stage carried inside the mother rather than taking place in water
Because brooding runs over weeks, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Woodlouse Hunter Spider
Fangs Longer Than the Head
Enormous forward-projecting fangs carried on jaws that open unusually wide • Striking a woodlouse from above and below simultaneously so the armoured plates are pinned between them • Feeding almost exclusively on a prey type nearly every other spider ignores
Because encounters are occasional, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Woodpecker Finch
Spine in the Beak for Hidden Larvae
Gleaning • Hammering • Bark-stripping
That makes it an adaptive system: direct foraging when food is easy and patient tool use when it is hidden.
Woolly Monkey
Fifth-Limb Tail Reach
Ranging • Suspended • Frugivorous
Because the system converts continuous wide-ranging foraging into steady returns, it is a mid-frequency system.
Woylie
Truffle Digging and Spore Spreading
Digging • Spreading • Nightly
Because the digging runs as a steady repeated nightly cycle, it is a mid-frequency system.