Critically Endangered
Scalloped bonnethead
Sphyrna corona
Scalloped bonnethead is a shark or ray in the family Sphyrnidae (order Carcharhiniformes) — Sphyrna corona, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The anal fin is long and has a nearly straight rear margin. Its coloration is gray above and white below, with no prominent fin markings. The similar scoophead (S. Media) can be distinguished by a shorter snout, a broader mouth, and a deeply concave anal fin margin.
Probably the smallest species of hammerhead shark, the scalloped bonnethead measures up to 92 centimetres (36 in) long.
Its mallet-shaped head, called a cephalofoil, is moderately wide (24–29% of total length) and elongated lengthwise.
Range and habitat
It is found in tropical and subtropical waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, from Mexico to Peru, and possibly as far north as the Gulf of California. It frequents inshore habitats over soft bottoms (mud, sand, and gravel) to a depth of 100 m, and also enters mangroves and estuaries.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Sharks and rays grow slowly and have few young. A fishery that treats them as bycatch can empty a coastal form.
In crisis
Scalloped bonnethead is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Scalloped bonnethead, Wikidata item Q289691. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
