'Access to a hammerhead embryo is very rare, which is what makes this image so special.'
The characteristic hammer-shaped head is just becoming visible in this image of an embryonic bonnethead shark. Scale bar=1 cm. Steven Byrum and Gareth Fraser, Department of Biology, University of FloridaScientists very rarely get access to most sharks, the development of their young or the nursery grounds where they grow. So seeing adevelopmental biologists like me
Hammerhead sharks don’t lay eggs, though. They gestate their pups in utero. A pregnant shark carries up to 16 embryos, each nourished by an umbilical cord, just like human embryos are. Then the mother gives birth to live young, and these babies are self-sufficient with teeth and jaws, ready to survive on their own.
This research allows us to study crucial stages in hammerhead development and, importantly, the precise moments – like this one pictured – when the embryo develops the characteristic head shape.A grown bonnethead shark has sensory advantages from its hammer-shaped head. Tom Brakefield/Stockbyte via Getty Images
The hammer-shaped heads are covered with expanded electric detector organs that support the sharks’ “sixth sense.” They can detect even the smallest electrical signals, such as the pulses from a prey fish’s heartbeat, or the Earth’s
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