Frequency signatures: Sun Bear to Swinhoe's Pheasant
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 2.041–2.064.
Sun Bear
Long-Tongue Cavity Reach
Opening • Reaching • Nightly
Because returns come from many repeated extraction bouts, it is a mid-frequency system.
Sun Conure
Flock-Cohesion Screech
Flocking • Calling • Restless
Because the system runs on continuous group coordination and repeated movement between patches, it is a mid-frequency system.
Sunbeam Snake
Polish for Burrowing, Colour Free
Buried • Polished • Waiting
Slow subsurface movement, occasional ambush and a long life make this a single low-frequency system.
Sunbittern
Becoming Something Ten Times Larger
Narrow • Barred • Streamside
That makes it a bimodal system: a narrow concealed baseline and one abrupt change of apparent size.
Sunda Clouded Leopard
Suspended Trunkway Hunter
Silent • Suspended • Stalking
Because its whole system is organized around long stretches of quiet, energy-sparing arboreal stealth punctuated by short, acrobatic bursts, the Sunda clouded leopard is best understood as a bimodal low–high frequency hunter.
Sunda Colugo
Full-Span Canopy Sail
Rhythmic • Linked • Glide-flow
This makes the colugo a mid-frequency system built around rhythmic, linked transitions through the canopy using its full-span membrane as a living sail.
Sunda Pangolin
Pelvis-Rooted Tongue Extension
Probing • Nocturnal • Toothless
Because the whole system runs slowly through the night, it is a low-frequency system.
Sunda Scops Owl
Canopy-Covered Soft Caller
Soft • Steady • Concealed
This combination of enhanced reception and modest, targeted output makes it a low-frequency communication system: soft, efficient signalling in the dark rather than high-powered broadcast.
Sunda Slow Loris
Nocturnal Grip-and-Venom Frame
Hidden • Deliberate • Enduring
That makes the slow loris a bimodal system: predominantly low-frequency stealth and conservation, with a structurally important high-frequency venom burst for close-quarters defense.
Sundas Pit Viper
Seeing Warmth Through Facial Pits
A membrane-lined pit between eye and nostril on each side of the head • Detecting temperature differences of a fraction of a degree across that membrane • Overlaying the thermal image on the visual one so a warm body is located in total darkness
Because scanning is continuous, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Suni
Freezing Until the Last Metre
Browsing in thicket • Standing frozen • One short bolt
Feeding quietly inside cover and moving very little makes this a low-frequency system.
Sunset Moth
Photonic Scale Lattice
Day-flying • Signalling • Migratory
Because the system runs on continuous daytime activity backed by a permanent structural signal, it is a mid-frequency system.
Superb Bird-of-paradise
Cape-Spread Ellipse Display
Foraging • Sweeping • Ordinary
Because a plain low-cost baseline alternates with a brief regime the whole plumage exists to produce, this is a bimodal system.
Superb Fairywren
Shrubline Signal Weave
Rhythmic • Social • Cover-tied
That makes the Superb Fairywren a single mid-frequency system: its whole biology is tuned to continuous, coordinated social signaling threaded through protective cover.
Superb Fruit Dove
Swallowing Fruit Whole, Passing Seeds Intact
Clambering • Swallowing • Tracking
The result is a single, steady mid-frequency foraging rhythm, probably concentrated, as in many canopy frugivores, in the cooler morning and late-afternoon hours.
Superb Lyrebird
Copied-From-Copies Vocal Archive
Listening • Rehearsing • Replaying
Collection, storage and replay run continuously through the year, which makes this a mid-frequency system built on accumulation rather than on any single performance.
Superb Starling
Many Pairs, Many Helpers, One Nest Tree
Foraging • Cooperative • Group-breeding
That makes it a bimodal system: steady cooperative foraging and breeding, with bursts of collective defence.
Surinam Horned Frog
Bite Force Out of All Proportion
Buried in litter • Waiting • One enormous bite
This is a low-frequency system.
Surinam Toad
Skin Grown Up Around Each Egg
Somersaulting in the clasp • Eggs pressed into the back • Months of waiting
This is a low-frequency system.
Swallow-tailed Kite
A Day Spent Never Landing
Soaring • Snatching from the canopy • Drinking on the wing
Continuous daylight flight and feeding makes this a mid-frequency system.
Swamp Forest Crab
Direct-Developing Freshwater Brood
Sheltered • Brooding • Local
Small broods, slow local turnover and almost no dispersal make this a low-frequency system held in place by its swamp.
Swamp Harrier
Slow Flight Below the Reed Line
Low • Slow • Sudden
That makes it a mid-frequency system: sustained low-cost searching in which surprise comes from the flight path rather than from any burst.
Swift Fox
A Fox Living Underground
Burrows occupied and maintained throughout the year rather than only for raising young • Multiple entrances and several dens within a home range, used and switched constantly • The animal retreating underground from coyotes, raptors, heat and cold alike, on ground with no cover of any kind
Because the cycle is daily, it operates as a mid-frequency system.
Swinhoe's Pheasant
Iridescence Aimed at a Light Gap
Foraging • Orienting • Flashing
That makes it a mid-frequency system: steady ground foraging carrying a signal that is aimed rather than simply worn.