Frequency signatures: Gray Whale to Great Tit
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 961–984.
Gray Whale
Rolling Over to Eat Mud
Rolling onto one side on shallow Arctic bottom • Sucking mouthfuls of sediment in and straining them through short coarse baleen • Leaving pits in the seafloor and plumes of mud behind
Since the cycle runs annually, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Gray Wolf
Family-Pack Prey Testing
Trotting • Approaching • Letting most of them go
Because a long economical assessment phase funds a rare and hazardous commitment, this is a bimodal system.
Grayling
A Sail Held in Current
Holding station low on clean gravel in fast water • Raising an outsized dorsal fin into the flow • Using it to brace, to turn and to display in the spawning season
Since station-holding adjustments are continuous, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Great Argus
Shaded-Ocelli Wing Fan
Court-keeping • Displaying • Daily
Because the system runs on continuous preparation and repeated daily performance, it is a mid-frequency system.
Great Blue Heron
Folded-Neck Spear Release
Standing • Folded • Loaded
That makes it a bimodal system: an extremely cheap loaded wait and a single instantaneous release.
Great Blue Turaco
Copper Pigment, Not Trick Of Light
Bounding along branches • Feeding • Calling
Continuous daily foraging and travel make this a mid-frequency system.
Great Cormorant
One Long Dive at a Time
Deep • Sustained • Single-minded
That makes it a mid-frequency system: sustained deep work in long repeated efforts.
Great Crested Grebe
A Display Both Sexes Perform
Head-shaking face to face • Diving for weed and rising breast to breast • Repeating the whole sequence through the season
Since ceremonies recur through the season, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Great Crow
Poison Turned Into Perfume
Adults feeding at withered plants to take up pyrrolizidine alkaloids they cannot synthesise • Storing those compounds in the body so that the butterfly is unpalatable to birds • Converting part of the same supply into the courtship pheromone released from extrusible hairpencils
Because acquisition runs over weeks, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Great Curassow
Coiled-Trachea Ground Boom
Walking • Booming • Territorial
Because the system runs on a repeated daily broadcast and steady walking foraging, it is a mid-frequency system.
Great Eggfly
A Gene That Saved
A bacterium inherited through the egg that kills male embryos, leaving populations almost entirely female • A suppressor gene appearing that blocks the killing without removing the bacterium • That gene sweeping through the population within about ten generations as any male carrying it leaves enormous numbers of offspring
Because generations run over months, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Great Egret
White Against the Sky
Wading • Deliberate • Bright
That makes it a low-frequency system: slow, deliberate and economical.
Great Frigatebird
Thermal Ladder, No Water Landing
Soaring • Unflapping • Committed aloft
Almost no expenditure, decades of life and very slow breeding make this a single low-frequency system.
Great Gray Owl
Facial Disc Into Snow Plunge
Perched • Motionless • Collecting
That pairing makes it a bimodal system, a low-frequency listening hold paying for a high-frequency plunge.
Great Green Bush-cricket
A File Drawn Across Blade
A row of fine teeth on the underside of one forewing forming a file • A hardened scraper on the edge of the other wing drawn across those teeth as the wings close • Each tooth producing a click, and a thin membrane on the wing resonating to amplify the train of clicks into a continuous song
Because the mechanism cycles thousands of times a second, it operates as a high-frequency system.
Great Hornbill
Sealed-Cavity Provisioning
Sealed • Provisioned • Daily
Because the system runs on a constant repeated delivery cycle, it is a mid-frequency system.
Great Horned Owl
Silent Approach, Crushing Grip
Perched • Listening • Unseen
That makes it a bimodal system: an extremely cheap listening watch and a rare, decisive strike.
Great Kiskadee
Exposed-Perch Sallying
Perched • Sallying • Unrestricted
That makes it a mid-frequency system: rhythmic and repeatable, built on holding a visible vantage point and converting whatever comes past.
Great Mormon
Forms Locked in One Block
Wearing a tailed, red-bodied, white-patched pattern • Copying a distasteful Pachliopta swallowtail • Protected only where birds have learned that model
The two strategies also work on different timescales, one needing a season of predator learning and the other acting within a single encounter, which makes this a bimodal system.
Great Plains Toad
Digging Down Heel First
Hardened keratinised tubercles on the heel of each hind foot working as blades • The animal shuffling backwards into loose soil rather than digging forwards with the hands • Descending until it is well below the dry surface layer and remaining there for months
Because the cycle is annual, it operates as a low-frequency system.
Great Potoo
Bark Posture, Eyelid Slits
Rigid • Bill-up • Unmoving
A full day of motionless imitation and a night of short committed strikes make this a bimodal system, a low-frequency hold beside a high-frequency hunt.
Great Skua
Extracts From Whatever Flux Exists
Patrolling • Pressing • Taking
Continuous patrol and interception makes this a mid-frequency system.
Great Tinamou
Leaf-Litter Shadow Walker
Still • Cryptic • Grounded
This combination of persistent low-motion concealment with periodic, moderate vocal signalling makes the system bimodal: a dominant low-frequency cryptic mode, with a structured mid-frequency acoustic channel layered on top.
Great Tit
A Heritable Exploratory Tendency
Approaching novel objects quickly or slowly depending on individual temperament • Passing that tendency to offspring • Being favoured or penalised depending on how hard the year is
Since exploratory behaviour recurs daily, it operates as a mid-frequency system.