The hammerhead shark looks weird for a reason. Its wide, flat, T-shaped head puts the eyes way out on the ends - about as far apart as eyes can possibly be on a shark. That spacing gives it something most fish don’t have: nearly 360° vision, including a clear view of everything above and below.
But the head isn’t just a great vantage point. It’s also packed with thousands of tiny electrical sensors called ampullae of Lorenzini. All sharks have them, but hammerheads have an unusually rich array, spread over their wide forehead like a metal detector.
When the hammerhead swings its head from side to side as it swims along the seafloor, it’s sweeping for the faint electric signals of buried stingrays - its favorite food. Once it picks up a signal, the shark pins the ray down with its head and digs in. The famous weird shape isn’t just for looks - it’s a built-in scanner.
