Scalloped hammerhead shark

Photo: Kris Mikael Krister · CC BY

Scalloped hammerheads are highly social sharks that form large schools at seamounts and outer reef edges, particularly during the northwest monsoon season when cooler, productive water masses move through the Halmahera Sea. Their wide-set eyes on the extended cephalofoil provide 360-degree vision, and the structure also houses an exceptional array of electroreceptors that detect the bioelectric fields of buried stingray prey. Critically Endangered globally due to finning and bycatch, they are a flagship species for deep ocean conservation in the Coral Triangle.