Hammer Time: Scientists Have Figured Out Why Hammerheads Love Eating Other Sharks
The hammerhead shark doesn’t always get the respect it deserves. Thanks to their cartoonishly distanced eyes, they typically have a blind spot in front of their snout where schools of fish can safely congregate. Fin placement often leads to a peculiar tilt to their bodies while swimming. They are, in short, nature’s goofballs.
While they may be funny-looking, hammerheads practice a high-stakes game of hunting other shark species—an urge that hasn’t been well understood by science until now.
In a new study published in the journal Oecologia, scientists at Florida International University are disclosing new information about the dietary habits of hammerheads. While most shark species stick to a diet of relatively small and frequent portions, hammerheads tend to seek out large blacktip sharks, rays, and barracudas that require considerable energy to pursue and digest. (A hammerhead might weigh 250 pounds; a blacktip, 55 pounds.) Researchers wanted to know: Why go through all that extra trouble?
To get answers, nine hammerheads off the Gulf and Atlantic coasts in Florida were detained and equipped with biologging sensors that measure a shark’s swimming speed and location. Cameras were able capture video of their environment. They were then returned to the water, where researchers could monitor the hammerhead’s predatory activities and track their metabolic rate.
,xPosition=0.2546875,yPosition=0.4583333333333333)
