Great hammerhead Facts for Kids
Sphyrna mokarran · SFIR-nuh moh-KAR-an
The biggest hammerhead shark, with a wide, flat head.
- 🏃 speed: not yet checked
- ⚖️ 992 lb450 kg1
- 📏 20 ft6.1 m1 long
- 🎂 30 years30 years1
- 🍽️ meat
- In great danger (Critically Endangered)
A great hammerhead is a big shark with a wide, flat head shaped like a hammer. It lives in warm coastal seas.
Great hammerheads live in warm coastal seas around the world, often near reefs and the sea floor. They eat stingrays and other rays, groupers, sea catfish, crabs and squid.
The great hammerhead is the biggest of the hammerhead sharks, with a wide, flat head like a hammer. It lives in warm coastal seas around the world, often near reefs and the sea floor. It likes to eat stingrays and other rays, and also groupers, sea catfish, crabs and squid. In the wild a hammerhead can live about thirty years.
How big is a great hammerhead?
Great hammerhead in numbers
| Length | 20 ft6.1 m1up to |
|---|---|
| Height at the shoulder | no checked number yet |
| Weight | 992 lb450 kg1up to; the largest published weight, 449.5 kg |
| Top speed | no checked number yet |
| How long it lives | 30 years30 years1the longest reported |
| What it eats | stingrays and other rays, groupers, sea catfish, crabs and squid |
| Where it lives | warm coastal seas around the world, near reefs and the sea floor |
| What kind | Fish |
| Is it in danger? | In great danger (Critically Endangered)2 |
A number we couldn’t find on a page we trust says so, instead of guessing.
Wow!
- A great hammerhead's head is wide and flat like a hammer.
- It lives in warm coastal seas around the world.
- It likes to eat stingrays and other rays.
Compare the great hammerhead
Friends and neighbours
Great white shark
Giant manta ray
Green sea turtleThree questions
Books about the great hammerhead, free at the library
Ask a grown-up to tap the button: it shows where to borrow a book about the great hammerhead for free.
For teachers
Use this animal in class: its facts are on this page, and the cards print from it.
Where these numbers come from
- FishBase, Sphyrna mokarran (great hammerhead), checked 10 November 2026.
- Wikidata, from the IUCN Red List, checked 10 November 2026.
- Wikidata, Great hammerhead (Q757353), checked 30 October 2026.