Critically Endangered
This is the largest of hammerhead sharks, averaging 11-15 feet long. The record length for one caught was 20 feet though, so who knows how big they can get. It is thought they could maybe even live to be 50 years old. Females are bigger than males. Born live, they range about 1 1/2 feet to not quite 2 1/2 feet long at birth in litters of 15 to almost 60 pups! They are fairly solitary, eating stingrays mostly but many other things as well. They are even known to be cannibalistic. Overfishing is their biggest threat, and they are caught for their fins primarily as the rest of them is rarely eaten by humans. They do have a bad reputation, but are actually shy and usually not aggressive. They have small mouths in comparison to other sharks their size. Of the 34 recorded bites blamed on hammerheads as a whole, only 17 were considered unprovoked, and none of them were fatal.
I don't like water so I am not one who is going to be at risk of testing a hammerhead shark's aggressiveness. Ok, I love looking at water, just not being in it. I love the ocean, streams, waterfalls, all of that, it is beautiful and relaxing to watch. Because of my tinnitus I have a CD of ocean sounds playing quite loudly, and I find it very soothing. I do not like swimming in water though. The only time I really felt good swimming was in Albania because the water was so clear I could tell no fish were going to come bite me, and there were no plants to get tangled in either. I also really hate drinking water though. It tastes like metal to me. Not just tap water, but filtered, distilled, even the flavoured water reminds me of sucking on a spoon. I had one person say it must be that I had bad teeth or a ton of fillings. Nope, I have only one filling, and good teeth. I've never been able to drink water really. It was awful when I had to drink a lot before getting an ultrasound with my first pregnancy, I threw up on the way to the appointment. The next time, I just had a cup of coffee before the appointment, not the ton of water, and it worked fine. Interestingly I also generally don't feel thirsty. On a normal day I will have a coffee in the morning, and often nothing else. I've been forcing myself to drink at least one other thing most days, but there have been some days when I've been getting ready for bed and I realize I didn't even have my morning coffee. Even so I have to think about whether I really want to bother drinking at all that day. Usually if I go a whole day without drinking something I will start to finally feel thirsty. My husband says I may be part lizard and get my moisture from my food (and soup is my favourite food). I prefer to believe I'm part Kangaroo Rat, because they are so cute.
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