Hammer Head Shark By: Chris Gardner

Common name: Smooth hammer shark, Great hammer shark, wing head shark, small eye hammer head shark , White fin Hammer Head shark ,Scalloped Hammer head shark. Scientific name: Sphyrna Lewini

Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Elasmbranchii Order: Carcharhiniformes Family: Sphyrnidae Genus: Sphyrna Species: Sphyrna Mokarran

Hammer head sharks are 13 to 20ft. Hammer Head sharks weight is 500 to 1,000lbs.

The hammerhead reside in the coastal waters of northern Australia, northern Africa, and the coral reefs of the Caribbean and Indonesian islands. They can live in as shallow as 3 feet of water to up to more than 262 feet deep.

The hammerhead shark prefers to feed on stingrays and other batoids, groupers, and sea catfishes; it also preys on other small bony fishes, crabs, squid, other sharks, rays, and lobsters.

Another unusual thing hammerheads do is form schools Another unusual thing hammerheads do is form schools. These schools can contain hundreds of individuals, with the largest known schools containing as many as 500. The reason why hammerheads school and other sharks do not is unknown. Hammerheads only school during the day. They break up at night to do their feeding. Because the schools contain mainly small to medium sized hammerheads, it is believed that they school to reduce the risk of predation from larger sharks. It is also believed that an order of dominance exists in the schools based on age, size and sex. Reproduction in the hammerhead shark occurs once a year with each litter containing 20 to 40 pups. Once the pups are born the parents do not stay with them and they are left to fend for themselves.

Human Impact During World War II this species was exploited for it’s liver.  The liver of this species is especially high in vitamin A.  So much that one gram of oil contains fifty thousand units of vitamin A. The fins of all Sphyrna zygaena’s that are between ten and fifteen feet are used for shark fin soup.