Sphyrnidae

Great hammerhead

Sphyrna mokarran

A sail high fin hunting bottom rays

• Brown
• Gray
• White
• Tropical
• Nearshore
• Globally widespread
• Marine fish
• Fusiform
• Large
• Tropical fish

Reigning as the titan among hammerhead sharks, the great hammerhead is a formidable, solitary apex predator roaming tropical and warm temperate seas worldwide. Its colossal body is crowned by a wide, flattened cephalofoil with an almost completely straight front edge interrupted only by a gentle central indentation, while its towering, dramatically curved, sickle-shaped first dorsal fin reaches skyward like a dark sail. Distributed circumtropically through coastal shelves, island drop-offs, and deep offshore passages from the surface down to eighty meters depth, it maintains a nomadic, wide-ranging lifestyle. Using its broad sensory head as both an electromagnetic hunting array and a physical lever, it specializes in locating and pinning stingrays to the sandy sea floor while severing their wings. Additionally, it actively pursues jacks, groupers, tarpon, and smaller sharks. Viviparous with litters ranging up to fifty-five pups, this majestic predator attains recorded maximum total lengths of six hundred and ten centimetres.

Sources: NOAA Fisheries — Great Hammerhead Shark, Sphyrna mokarran