🐾 Hammerhead Shark

Hammerhead Shark

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Scientific name: Family Sphyrnidae
Family & relatives: This is a group of about ten shark species in the family Sphyrnidae, all sharing the famous hammer-shaped head.
How to spot it: Instantly known by their wide, flattened head called a cephalofoil, with an eye on each end.

Size: Sizes range from about 1 meter in small species to nearly 6 meters in the great hammerhead.
Weight: The largest species, the great hammerhead, can weigh over 400 kilograms.
Body & adaptations: The wide head spreads out their senses and helps them turn sharply while swimming.
Top speed: They are agile swimmers that can accelerate quickly to chase prey.
Strength: Their spread-out electric sensors give them a super sense for finding hidden prey.
Senses: The wide head holds many electric-sensing pores, giving a broad sweep to detect buried animals.
Growing up: Young are born live in coastal nurseries and grow up in shallow, protected waters.

Habitat: They live in warm coastal and open waters, from reefs to the deep edge of the shelf.
Where in the world: Found in tropical and warm-temperate seas worldwide.
Territory: Many species migrate long distances with the seasons and warm currents.

Diet: They are carnivores that especially love stingrays, plus fish, squid, and crustaceans.
Favorite foods: Stingrays are a favorite meal, and hammerheads seem unbothered by their stings.
How it hunts: They use the wide head to pin stingrays against the seafloor before eating them.

How it moves: They swim with smooth tail beats and can sometimes swim tilted on their side to save energy.
When it is active: Many hunt more actively at night and rest or school by day.
Family life: Some species form huge daytime schools of hundreds, a rare sight among sharks.
How it talks: They use body movements and positions within the school to interact.
Babies: Females give live birth to litters that can range from a few pups to several dozen.

Role in nature: As predators they help control ray and fish numbers on reefs and sandy flats.
Conservation: Several large species, like the great and scalloped hammerheads, are Critically Endangered from overfishing.
Dangers: Adults face few natural threats, but people and the fin trade are their biggest danger.

How long it lives: Larger hammerheads can live 20 to 30 years or more.
In our culture: Their odd head shape makes them favorites at aquariums and in ocean documentaries.
Where to see it: Divers see big schools at places like the Galapagos, Cocos Island, and the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.
Fun fact: Their eyes sit on the ends of the hammer, giving them almost a full view all around.

Video: Pixabay · Photos: Wikimedia Commons & Pixabay