Another name for the hammerhead shark, sometimes used poetically or colloquially to describe the unusual shape of this creature.
Compound of 'hammer' and 'bird'—a folk term that incorrectly classifies the shark as a bird, likely from confusion or poetic invention rather than scientific naming.
This is a rare archaic term showing how people before modern taxonomy sometimes described creatures using familiar objects—the flat head 'hammering' through water seemed bird-like in motion.
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