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Great Hammerhead Research Paper

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Hammerheads are usually talked about as if it was just one creature but in a matter of fact the hammerhead shark comes in nine different species. The largest of the species is the Great hammerhead shark, they can range from 3.4m to 6m long and 225kg to 450kg in weight, the females are larger than the males but males mature at an earlier stage, although smaller sizes are more commonly found. The hammerhead sharks habitat is offshore in water depths of 300m, also in shallow coastal areas like continental shelves and lagoons. The hammerhead moves poleward when migrating to get to cooler waters when it is the summer season, which is caused by the abiotic factors. The young swim mostly in shallow waters along the shores almost all over the world …show more content…

They have a great sense of smell so they are able to scout out food without too much trouble. Hammerheads also eat fish, octopus, squid and sometimes other sharks, even its own young if food was scarce. There have been reports that when food is scarce they will turn on each other so they could survive. The stingray is the hammerheads favourite food source. Hammerhead sharks, although dangerous, are keen eaters of stingrays. They patiently search the ocean floor for a buried stingray and when they have located one it sneaks up behind and pins the ray to the floor using its abnormal sizes head, slowly devouring it while it’s alive.

Out of the many 10 known species of hammerhead sharks, only a small 3 of them have been known to be reasonably dangerous to humans. This consists of the Scalloped Hammerhead, Great hammerhead and the smooth hammerhead. Since 2013 there have been 33 recorded hammerhead shark attacks, but no deaths have become of them. The Scalloped and Great hammerhead sharks have been listed as endangered on the IUCN 2008's red list but the smalleye hammerhead shark is only rated as vulnerable. The reason these sharks have been rated as this is because of the over

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