What if your head was half the size of your entire body? That’s a reality for winghead sharks, a species of hammerhead.

They’re in the family Sphyrnidae, meaning “hammer” in Greek. Hammerheads can reach lengths of 12 to 18 feet and weigh from 180 to 900 pounds; the heaviest recorded was a female great hammerhead weighing 1,280 pounds, and the longest recorded was a female measured at about 20 feet long!
These sharks have heads shaped like a T to aid them in picking up electromagnetic energy generated by their prey, stingrays. Stingrays like to hide themselves in the sand, camouflaging easily. The hammerhead swims along the floor of the ocean and sways its large head back and forth in order to detect these signals and, along with it, the stingray. It uses its cephalofoil, or laterally expanded head, to then pin the prey down and grab it with its powerful jaws. Their bite force of over 500 PSI, compared to the average human’s of 162, can make easy work of any unlucky ray or skate.
Not only are these sharks interesting, they also play important roles in their ecosystems. Great hammerheads, named similarly to their relatives great whites, are top predators in their typically tropical environments. They look after the numbers of their prey to help curb overpopulation. Excessive quantities of any organism can lead to habitat instability; overconsumption of resources in the area causes harm to any species’ home.