Frequency signatures: Chinook Salmon to Cobweb Spider
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 433–456.
Chinook Salmon
Upstream on a Fixed Fat Budget
Surging • Leaping • Non-feeding
Because the run alternates between hard bursts of travel and spells of holding in slack water, the system is bimodal.
Chiru
Hollow-Fibre Underwool Insulation
Dispersed • Grazing • Winter plateau
Because the animal cannot survive without both the insulation and the migration, it is a bimodal system.
Chital
Langur-Shared Alarm Network
Grazing under the troop • Taking what is dropped • Barking what it smells
Because the grazing and the listening run together through the day, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Chocolate Chip Sea Star
Catch-Tissue Hydraulic Grip
Gripping • Creeping • Rebuilding
Because every process it runs is measured in months and costs close to nothing per hour, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Christmas Island Red Crab
A Population on Lunar Time
Waiting in forest burrows through the dry season • Moving to the coast en masse when the wet season rains begin • Releasing larvae into the sea at the turn of the high tide on a specific lunar day
Since the cycle is annual, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Christmas Tree Worm
Ciliated Plume and Snap-Shut Tube
Filtering • Ciliary • Continuous
Since the worm feeds by keeping cilia beating steadily and survives by all-or-nothing withdrawals, it works as a bimodal system: a mid-frequency filtering rhythm cut by high-frequency retractions.
Cicada
Years on the Thinnest Food
Nymphs underground piercing xylem vessels and drinking sap that is almost entirely water • Filtering enormous volumes to extract traces of amino acids at very low concentration • Taking years rather than months to accumulate enough to complete development
Because the cycle runs across years, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Cicada Killer Wasp
Paralysed Cicada Cache
Digging • Stocking • Sealing
That makes it a mid-frequency system: rhythmic and repetitive, organised around preserving and stocking rather than around the kill.
Cichlid
A Second Set Inside
Oral jaws at the front used only for catching and holding • A second set of jaws in the throat, formed from modified gill arches, used for processing • Each set free to specialise because neither has to do the other's job
Because feeding is continuous, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Cinereous Vulture
Tough-Hide Carcass Opener
Soaring • Fasting • Gorging
Because the system pairs very cheap search with rare, large, heavily banked returns, it is a low-frequency system.
Citrus Flatid Planthopper
Wax Colonies on Any Woody Stem
Feeding • Waxed • Crowded
That makes it a bimodal system: sedentary sap feeding and sudden escape.
Citrus Mealybug
Secreted Wax Coat
Settled • Wax-covered • Sap-fed
That makes it a low-frequency system: slow, settled and protected by what it builds over itself.
Clark's Nutcracker
Mountain Seed-Cache Grid
Rhythmic • Placed • Returning
This steady, spatially organized pattern of activity makes Clark’s Nutcracker a mid-frequency system built around ongoing, coordinated work rather than rare bursts or deep torpor.
Click Beetle
Years Underground, Then a Latched Snap
Burrowing • Feeding • Slow-growing
That makes it a bimodal system: years of slow subterranean growth and a brief latched snap.
Cliff Chipmunk
Rock-Crevasse Pantry Network
Route • Cache • Reuse
This makes the cliff chipmunk a bimodal system: a mid-frequency, route-based caching rhythm structurally supported by short, high-frequency dash-and-evade bursts.
Cliff Swallow
Colonial Mud-Nest Circuit
Rhythmic • Site-faithful • Circuit
This creates a bimodal pattern: a mid-frequency commuting circuit anchored to a remembered wall, punctuated by high-frequency construction and defense bursts that keep the mud-cup village usable and safe.
Clothes & House Moth
A Gut That Digests Wool
Feeding as a larva on wool, fur, feathers and horn • Running a highly alkaline gut with strongly reducing conditions • Breaking the disulphide bonds that make keratin indigestible to almost everything else
Since the cycle runs across months, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Clouded Leopard
Reversing Ankle Descent
Climbing • Hanging • Nocturnal
Because hunting and moving run as a steady nocturnal cycle, it is a mid-frequency system.
Clown Knifefish
Swimming on One Continuous Fin
Holding the body rigid and driving with a long undulating anal fin • Reversing direction by reversing the wave • Manoeuvring through submerged roots without turning around
Since fin waves run many times a second, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Clown Loach
A Blade That Flicks Out Below the Eye
Working the substrate • Clicking • Locking out the spine
Continuous active foraging makes this a mid-frequency system.
Clown Triggerfish
A Second Spine That Locks the First
Patrolling • Cropping • Defending
That makes it a bimodal system: assertive open foraging, and a locked state a predator cannot mechanically undo.
Clownfish
Anemone Mucus Immunity
Host-bound • Tending • Sheltered
That makes it a mid-frequency system: rhythmic, continuous and defined by maintaining one relationship rather than by ranging.
Coal Tit
Thousands of Hidden Stores Remembered
Taking one seed at a time and hiding each in a separate place • Distributing caches over a wide area of bark, moss and needles • Returning to specific sites over weeks using spatial memory
Since caching trips recur constantly, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Cobweb Spider
Threads That Lift Prey
Vertical silk lines running from a tangled web down to the ground, glued at the bottom and held under tension • An insect walking into one sticking to the glue and snapping the line free • The prey hauled up off the surface as the line contracts, leaving it hanging and helpless
Because triggering is occasional, it operates as a low-frequency system.