I like how every single hypothesis presented in this video has seemingly near conclusive evidence against it. We really haven't figured why hammerheads have hammerheads at all.

I got to know a Hammerhead shark. He liked to hang out just off of the bar where I surfed. Every day, dawn and dusk he would bet here. At first I was a little freaked out at a 8 ft shark circling me but for some reason when I saw is second fin pop up it kinda put me at ease. Most every surfer worth their wax has been brushed by the sandpaper fish but, My first close encounter with him was when he chased a school of blues past me. Even though Hammerheads have been know to be less aggressive. It was seriously unnerving. Fast and fierce. He nearly hit me and I felt the board buck as the currents hit it from underneath when he turned. If it had been a Mako or a Tiger, I think I would be less a limb or dead. Over the next 6 years I watched the space between the fins grow. He would circle us and lurk on the ocean side of the bar for about 2 hours and carry on his rounds. . Over time he slowly got closer and closer to us.. Id say around 4 years in he started seriously getting closer. The few brushes and buzz bys became pauses in the water and belly flashes, almost like a Dolphin. Strange behavior for a Shark of any kind I have ever know.. By the end of our time together, he would literally let guys pet him. Not in the puppy dog way, but more of a 2-3 second pause in the middle of a turning motion before slapping the water with his tail and powering away.. He would slowly roll back up and flash his belly and do it again from the opposing side. Anyone that knows sharks knows that any side to side movement from a Hammerhead could be a sign of them sizing you up and a shark slapping you with their tail is an attempt to injure you, but we never felt that way with the belly flashing display and all. It was never an aggressive slap or a true expression of his power. We interpreted that as a sign of his intent being simple Curiosity. By this time he was not small by any means. I once saw him clear his gills and he was about a foot clear of the water.. I estimated him at 10 ft. That beautiful brown over silver flash against the orange water was beautiful and a stark reminder of what we were swimming with. . Sadly ,one winter day I noticed he had a few deep scrapes on his rear fin and flank, I suspect it got into a fight or possibly a boat strike. Heck, maybe an idiot surfer stabbed it, I have no clue. It wasn't but a few weeks later that he was starting to grey out completely and some one caught him. He was a news worthy catch at 13 foot 6 inches. He was missed on the bar and needless to say, other sharks moved in and it wasn't 6 months later someone nearly lost their foot to a shark on the bar. We were once again at the mercy of the ocean without our friend and guardian.. RIP Rounder. Wrightsville Beach misses you.

Trying to imagine their field of vision does a number on my brain.

Just because an animal is positioned on the basal position in a phylogenetic tree doesn't necessarily mean the it's features is representative of the ancestral condition - they are still evolving after the split and can in fact get really specialized. Smilodon for instance is more basal relative to modern cats, but it by no means reflects the ancestral condition of felines.

ive always wondered why hammerheads decided to become a tool so glad you made this video

Survive all five mass extinctions Evolve unique head shape for survival Are literally movie stars (Jaws, The Meg) Sharks are truly gigachad of evolution.

Interesting that the armored fish vanished while cartilage prevailed.

I'd love a video on how closely related all the shark species are.

I really wish I’d been able to take a class going into specifics of how different species evolved like this in college when I got my degree in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. Love this channel

In case my profile picture doesn't make it obvious, I love this video. Thank you for diving deep with the hammerheads. Absolutely fascinating.

Hammerheads are my favorite sharks i think they look cool rather than odd. I like alot of animals people find "weird" usually because theyre very specialized to thier environment or niche. For example my favorite land mammal is the giant ant eater and my favorite bird is a tie between the toco toucan and the roseate spoonbill. Not only do i think asthetically they're amazing but also how they adapt physically to the environment i find fascinating.

Your videos always quench my thirst for evolutionary knowledge!

I have gone almost 25 years never knowing there was more than one species of hammerhead.

my mind was blown when you made me realize sharks are older than god damn trees lol.

Bonnetheads probably evolved smaller heads since they do not need many hunting advantages, getting most energy from eating sea grass

Hammerheads are so weird and cool that I think they might be my favorite kind of shark!

Anytime I see a notification from Moth Light Media I rush as soon as I see it keep the content coming 🙌🏾

Love the videos as usual, thank you and keep it up!

"a truly unique structure... in the animal kingdom..." hammerhead worm: am i a joke to you!?

I love this channel because I learn a lot. The narration is very concise and it's also calm and soothing.

Very interesting, I love your videos Moth light media!

Great video as always, I am so Intrigued by the Hammerheads. I have an idea for another video, you could discuss the unknown world of Appalachia. Cretaceous Laramidia is easily the most famous prehistoric landscape, but the landmass right beyond it is an enigma. The creatures we do know in Appalachia are strange as well. I think it would be a really interesting video.

My favorite sharks! Awesome video!

fascinating as ever. thanks for putting this out.

Thank you man! What a way to start the weekend

Could... Could we get the sawsharks next? I really want to know how my whole toolbox came to be.

Amazing video as always

hey hey hey my favorite shark!!! finally featured in Moth Light

Thank you. I really enjoyed this and was fascinated by the vision overlap study.

And of course, the bonnethead is the only shark known to get nutrition from plants. They'll eat seagrass!

This is my favorite channel on youtube!

A new MLM video! Glad it's not a scam.

Right on. Thanks for sharing.

Coolest Sharks.

Yeah Boi, new Moth Light Media video and it's on Hammerheads. Hell yeah.

NEW MOTHLIGHT VIDEO, WOOOOOOO

The discussion about the eyes made me think: not every change needs to be specifically helpful, it just needs to not be bad enough to out outweigh the benefits that it's carried along with. So if something about the wide head is really useful, the particular mutation that creates that shape carries the eyes with it, and the shark doesn't need its eyes that much, then those eyes get pulled sideways. Or vice versa, if wide binocular vision is super useful, then that might drag other neutral-ish changes with it. With the super wide form being more basal, it does look like something *really weird* happened to select the hammerhead shape, some very specific circumstance that only lasted for a short time, and selective pressure has been pushing them towards "normal" shark shape ever since.

So why did the cephalofoil evolve? I don't think this is answered. Is it just a mystery?

hammerheads are so *incredibly* weird. not only are they the *only* sharks to develop such an extended head, they are also the only sharks to have an omnivorous species (bonnet/shovel heads) and the most basal species has the largest hammer. truly, the weirdest cartilaginous fish.

They look so cool!

Best BG music and volume level ever. Goes perfectly with your buttery voice.

People will look back in paleontology and be amazed at all the really strange creatures, being an outdoors-man I can verify that we still have some seriously strange creatures skulking about, I routinely catch Bonnet Head Sharks (not on purpose), the smallest member of the Hammerhead family of sharks, up close they are truly strange looking

Moth Light Media upload? On Hammerheads?!! Instant thumbs up

Love this fella

CephaloFoilCetacean anyone? Imagine if they had evolved as a sister group to the true whales? How different would the series "My Friend Flipper" be? Thank you for a fascinating in-depth study of Hammer Heads. Do left handed Hammer (heads) exist?

The hammerhead chasing the ray is cute

Interesting work. 🙂

I've always wondered, thanks

It should be noted that the connection between binocular vision and predatory behaviour is nowhere near as concrete as often assumed once you move outside of Mammalia (and even within mammals I can think of exceptions). Falcons for example have poor binocular vision compared to most predatory mammals, or even hawks and eagles, and this also applies to things like crocodilians.

I love all your content, but sharks are one of my favourite animals, so i always love to learn more cool things about them from your amazing channel!

Love your videos, never add them to watch later because i watch them asap. Can you do a video on beaks, like i have no idea how avian dinosaurs went from reptile like mouths to beaks

Looking at the hammerhead for this long makes me appreciate how big they made their heads

Hammerheads are ma favourite kinda sharks! Thanks for uploading and explaining:) I think it's interesting how they got their nostrils further apart and search the ocean's floor like a good boy~ lol. They pretty cool fellas!🦈🔨

I said this before and I'll say it again: please, PLEASE don't change your storytelling style. Your voice and tempo is so soothing and makes it easier to absorb what you're saying. Plus, it may or may not be nice to fall asleep to with your vids on autoplay...

I have a question, could you make a video on how endoskeletons evolved, or how vertabrates sperated from invertebrates in general?

nice video

Could you make a video about the evolution of eyes? I always found it fascinating.

video on my feed: the evolution of... me, who's obsessed with evolution: oh hell yes oh HELL YES oh hell yes

interesting topic, would not have guessed the winghead was the most ancestral.

0:43 Sharks, or shark like holocephalin fishes have evolved hammer head like traits before, such as the case with the Devonian Maghriboselache mohamezanei

Let's go! I'm designing a species with a hammer head adaptation

Hammerheads are quite fascinating

Hey I have a question about human evolution, especially in regards to our eye placement. This is about what you described, the tendency of predators to have their eyes placed in the front to have better depth perception and prey having them more on the side, to more easily detect a predator. My mother likes to argue that this shows that humans are predators by nature's, since our eyes are very much placed in the front. This does make sense, but I am not too sure that is being a predator caused us to have narrow eyes. I would argue that early (perhaps even pre-) humans (those who had not learned yet to walk bipedal) lived similar to nowaday primates, foraging plant and fruits, and occasionally hunting, but hunting was not their main source of food. This makes them more prey than predator, which is why the eyes should be more on the sides. However, if you a living in a forest and navigate and especially climb and jump through trees, you need very good depth perception for example for hand eye coordination and to judge how you are going to jump. I believe that this, our movement and habitat is the main reason we have our eyes at the front. Of course, once we became more advanced with tools and such made it really easy for us to hunt bigger animals and we became more and more the predators we are today. The difference is, that our eyes were not caused by our behavior, but our eyes made it more easy to adapt this new behaviour. (--> Exaptation). So it's less the question whether we are predators or not, but whether the placement of the eyes can be used as a valid argument in this case. Surely they help, but they have remained the same throughout our change of behavior

You didn't mention that the bonnethead is the only known HERBIVOROUS SHARK. At least, that's what I remember learning about it. I'm gonna have to double check that now

Would wider-spaced eyes have been better protection against being blinded by ray barbs?

Please, Could you make a video about what is a Basal Species? A video explaining more about Phylogeny

It is an odd creature in that the rest of its body is in every other way shark like. It seems akin to discovering a new primate with massive horns on its head.

Similar to using a larger coil when metal detecting, The greater the width of the hammer the deeper the shark can sense for prey buried beneath the seabed.

Thanks

Hammerhead shark "I'm smelling in stereo"😅

A shark's basic locomotion reminds me of a pigeon's but sideways: their depth perception is easily increased by the parallax effect of their head movements while in motion, which could definitely make up for the lack of overlap in their binocular vision

Hemmerheads are my favorite shark ever since I was little because of their hammerheads

8:50 when he says "neoteny which you can learn about here" is somethign supposed to pop up? Didn't youtube remove this feature years ago? I never get that stuff anymore

I wonder if the hammerhead is an example of a lineage of evolution that may eventually dissapear. It is something that is slowly evolving twards a smaller bonnet shaped head shark.

watching the hammerhead chase the ray, strikes me that its head rather gets in the way, and it's small mouth makes grabbing the ray a bit tricky 😄 perhaps they were just playing 😁

Please do a video on the evolution of Hedghogs

They evolved alongside the nailfish.

Lorenzo: “We’re the hammerheads!”🥳🎉

human : oh it full packed of sensoric feature shark : DOWNFORCE BABYYYY

Could you look into similar reef species separated by the break up of Gondwanaland? The clown fish seems to exist in symbiosis with anemones, both on the great barrier reef AND the east Africa coral reef. Other species of similarity are also found. Did these species evolve independently, or originally with the continent of Gondwanaland as it then separated? The flathead is another fish present in both locations. The evolutionary timeline of the cambrian explosion is predated by the break up of Gondwana land. Could the accuracy of these dates be further investigated by genetic, and evolutionary links to the separation of the continents? Thank you.

You're back dude don't dissapear ever again

cool vid

The music is so low it's freaking me out. I keep taking off my headphones like "What is that hum?" I turned it up to ear shatteringly high to notice this had a backing track on it.

Wouldn't more space between the eyes lead to improved depth perception? The closer the eyes are together, the difference between the images decreases, making it harder to determent depth?

Diopsid flies have weird heads as well.

It would be awesome if we find a Hammerheard fossil

2:55 - the numbers on this picture don't ad up - the actual length of the head of the presented specimen is closer to one third of its total body length. And one meter is more than half of 1.9 meter.

08:35 so what was the original purpose of the structure?

The wide angle meme brought to life

If their main prey is rays and skates which are all but flat I would imagine the very shallow angle of the hammer heads really helps them skim along the bottom and get closer and be more accurate when hunting their prey? Like what if their field of view with their eyes being so far apart is a by product? I wouldn’t know but fun to think about.

Sharks are my fav predatory fish of the oceans. Hammerheads are amongst my fav sharks.

8:43 Looks like it uses its head shape to get under the stinger of the stingray

I think it's pretty clear that their eyes need to be far apart so their friends can't make a v shape with their hand's forefinger and middle finger and poke their eyes. It's a lot harder to do that if your eyes are farther apart than your friend's shoulder width

Dispite people like moth light say sharks evolved 412million years or so it's rather cartilaginous fish in general then just sharks and those things people often call sharks are really early cartilaginous fish. Example is stethacanthus

8:26 Again, not necessarily. The first animal we classify as a hammerhead may have already had a large cephalofoil but at some point they still evolved from animals without cephalofoils which must have grown bigger over time. Even if the electroreceptors are clustered in the middle, they could've benefited from improved vision.

hammerheads imply the existence of a species they prey upon, the nailfish

Wake up babe, new moth light media video has dropped And it's about _sharks_

Wake up babe, new moth light media just dropped

Evolution with this animal be like: "let's do a bit of tomfoolery"

🤯🤯 I Always assumed hammerheads evolved their wide heads for electroreception