Spectacular Scalloped Hammerhead Shark Now on View

Cool: This is the first scalloped hammerhead shark at the Aquarium of Long Beach.

What to Know

  • Aquarium of the Pacific's Molina Animal Care Center
  • Aug. 29 debut
  • Long Beach

So you're tasked with drawing a shark? 

Many people would sit down, grab a pencil, and illustrate a fin, a pointy snout, and a specimen that looks very much like a great white, the colossal critter that swims most frequently through the shoals of popular culture.

But, of course, so many other sharks exist, in the ocean, here on this planet, right now, and while they might share some features with great whites, they're totally rocking their own individual vibes.

Take the scalloped hammerhead, which is quite individual, and unmistakable, and not at all great-white-ish in apperance. The Sphyrna lewini posts a head that can be described as horizontal, and quite flat, all told, with eyes on the far sides of the flat area.

It's so striking, and amazing, too, and probably 20 other words that end in -ing.

And now you can summon such words for yourself, for, for the first time ever, there's a scalloped hammerhead shark swimming at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.

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The first-ever scalloped hammerhead shark at the aquarium went on public view on Wednesday, Aug. 29. 

Where to see the juvenile shark, which currently is about three feet long? Make your way to the Molina Animal Care Center.

The "flexible and agile" scalloped hammerhead shark can grow to 10 to 14 feet. As for what this particular fish likes to dine upon? Think "fish and invertebrates."

"(T)emperate and tropical waters" is where the scalloped hammerhead shark makes his home.

Learn more about this unusual-of-noggin, amazingly eye'd aquatic icon, and admire one from just a few feet away, at the Molina Animal Care Center at the Aquarium of the Pacific.

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