Wide heads give hammerheads exceptional stereo view
Hammerhead sharks are some of the Ocean's most distinctive residents. 'Everyone wants to understand why they have this strange head shape,' says Michelle McComb from Florida Atlantic University. One possible reason is the shark's vision. 'Perhaps their visual field has been enhanced by their weird head shape,' says McComb, giving the sharks excellent stereovision and depth perception. However, according to McComb, there were two schools of thought on this theory. In 1942, G. Walls speculated that the sharks couldn't possibly have binocular vision because their eyes were stuck out on the sides of their heads. However, in 1984, Leonard Campagno suggested that the sharks would have excellent depth perception because their eyes are so widely separated. 'In fact one of the things they say on TV shows is that hammerheads have better vision than other sharks,' says McComb, 'but no one had ever tested this'. Teaming up with Stephen Kajiura...