Hammer Head Shark

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Hammer Head Shark

• By Chris Gardner

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• 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

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

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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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Human Impact

• During World War II this species was exploited
  for its 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 zygaenas that are
  between ten and fifteen feet are used for shark
  fin soup.