Great hammerhead shark

Photo: Christa Rohrbach · CC BY-NC-SA

Great hammerheads are the largest hammerhead species, reaching 6 metres, and use the cephalofoil — the distinctive hammer-shaped head — as an electrosensory array to detect stingrays buried in the sand, their primary prey. They visit Leven Bank seasonally, drawn by the aggregating grouper spawns and the dense baitfish schools. This is one of the few sites in East Africa where great hammerhead encounters are predictable rather than accidental. Listed as critically endangered due to the shark fin trade.