The Greek word sphyrna translates into "hammer" in English, referring to the shape of this shark's head, which is its most distinguishing characteristic.

It primarily lives in warm, temperate, and tropical coastal waters all around the globe between latitudes 46°N and 36°S, down to a depth of 500 m (1,600 ft).

[6] Scalloped hammerhead sharks are typically uniform grey, grayish brown, bronze, or olive with a white underside for countershading.

[8] A female caught off Miami was found to have measured 3.26 m (10.7 ft) and reportedly weighed 200 kg (440 lb), though was in a gravid state then.

[10] Due to high metabolic rates, young scalloped hammerhead sharks need a lot of food, or they will starve.

[6] The scalloped hammerhead is a coastal pelagic species; it occurs over continental and insular shelves and in nearby deeper water.

Research carried out by the nongovernmental organization Misión Tiburón, using conventional and acoustic shark tagging methods, found that adult scalloped hammerheads migrate from the pelagic waters surrounding Cocos Island to the mangroves in the tropical fjord of Golfo Dulce - a tropical fjord on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica.

[14] Here, female sharks give birth to live young; juveniles remain in the shallow root system of the mangroves for around three years.

After this time they leave Golfo Dulce and migrate back to Cocos Island, to feed in pelagic waters.

Sexual maturity generally occurs once the scalloped hammerhead attains 240 centimetres (7.9 ft) in total or longer.

The wide head and special sensory cells allow the scalloped hammerhead to successfully detect fish.

Compared to other species, the scalloped hammerhead produces large litters (12–41 pups),[21] and this is most likely due to high infant mortality.

[22] Their natal sites still cause high infant mortality; a lack of resources prevents all the young from surviving.

[26] These sharks are slow growing, mature late, and have low fecundity, which makes them very vulnerable to fishing.

[28] Many conservation efforts have been taken to protect this species, such as using genetic information from fins purchased from a Hong Kong market to pinpoint where scalloped hammerheads are being caught and track their exploitation levels.

[29] Fishing bans have been placed on some of these areas, such as in the Western Yucatan Peninsula, during breeding seasons to protect the young and juvenile scalloped hammerheads.

[25] Even though it is hard to prevent these sharks from biting the bait or getting in the net, there has been devices put in place for bycatch reduction.

[6] It is essential to understand the movement patterns of these sharks to be able to place effective conservation and management efforts.

It is very important to place these reserves over areas that sharks use as breeding grounds and nurseries, so they have somewhere to raise their pups.

It is also beneficial to place the marine reserves in areas where they are prized as a non consumptive resource through shark diving tourism.

As of 2020[update] an estimated 1.3 to 2.7 million fins are collected each year from smooth and scalloped hammerhead sharks for the shark-fin trade.

[34] DNA barcoding can assist in the identification of scalloped hammerhead remains to aid conservation efforts.