The grey reef shark is by all accounts a runt of the species, averaging a full grown length of between 5-6 ft. They more than make up for it by agility and speed. Also, unlike my other few entries, they travel in schools of 15-20 rather than being solitary territorial hunters. Despite their small stature they often dominate other sharks with their aggressive nature. They actually have been caught on film with a formal display of aggression as a warning before attack. Like a gang, one usually leads the charge, and the rest quickly follow suite. The reef shark is found on drop offs near reefs, and usually swim back and forth over the same area hunting free swimming fish and squid, octopus.
The reef shark will have a litter of up to 6 pups, but only every other year.
However because of their social nature and limited hunting zone, they are easy targets for fisheries, and are therefore considered near threatened.
Now the hammerhead stands unique to me for a few reasons. First is obvious, it's unique head. It's thin elongated nose with an eye on either end. This unique eye placement gives the shark good lateral vision as long as complete 360 vision at all times. The flattened horizontal nose also spreads out it's ampullae of Lorenzini, allowing it to use it's nose like a mine sweeper. Their are actually 9 species of hammerhead, and only 3 are dangerous to humans. 2 of those are endangered due to overfishing for their fins, the rest discarded into the ocean to die slowly.
The Hammerhead can reach a size of up to 20 ft, but that is usually the Great hammerhead, which is endangered. They will form schools during the day like reef sharks, but at night they will travel off as solitary hunters. They eat a wide variety of food, fish, squid, octopus, and other sharks. One of their favorites is the Stingray. They use their mine sweeping nose to detect the electromagnetic field of the Ray, pinning it with their nose and eating it while they are weak and in shock.
The weekend begins and I like to be vague and non committal so tomorrow will just be generalized facts about the species.
