Great Hammerhead Shark

Photo: Christa Rohrbach · CC BY-NC-SA

Great hammerheads appear at North Point between June and September, drawn by concentrations of stingrays and cownose rays that aggregate on the sandy flats between the reef and the channel — the hammerhead's broad cephalofoil bearing electroreceptors that detect buried rays with extraordinary sensitivity, and its oddly angled pectoral fins functioning as the tool it uses to pin prey to the substrate. As apex predators, they regulate ray populations and indirectly protect seagrass beds from overgrazing by the elasmobranch prey they consume — an ecological cascade confirmed in research along the Atlantic coast where hammerhead declines led to ray population explosions and subsequent seagrass collapse. Critically endangered globally, the individuals visiting Bazaruto are among the most accessible great hammerheads in the western Indian Ocean.