Hammerhead Shark Gives Birth to a Litter of Pups on Florida Beach [VIDEO]

A bizarre scene at the Panama City Beach, Florida, created a huge stir on Monday after a fisherman hauled a hammerhead shark from the water and dragged it to the shore where it gave birth to a litter of pups, which squirmed away into the waters after birth.

The five foot shark that was pulled onto the sand was soon surrounded by curious beachgoers and swimmers who watched it thrash in the shallow water. Within no time the crowd noticed tiny hammerhead pups emerge and wriggling their way into the water.

Hammerhead sharks are mostly found in warmer waters along coastlines and continental shelves. They give birth to a litter of 12-15 pups. During the day they swim in schools.

As seen in the video, the shark pups are independent and they immediately swam back into the water. They receive no nourishment from the mother and huddle together in shallow waters to avoid the risk of being eaten by predators.

The fisherman, who accidentally caught the hammerhead, tried to calm the aggressive mother but she frantically kept lashing her tail risking the lives of her newly born pups.

It is unclear what got the shark to the shore. Looks like the man was fishing and accidentally hooked the shark and hauled it to the shore to get back the hook, reports Nature World News

"Fishing is a legal activity. Unfortunately, he did catch a hammerhead shark, and I'm just assuming that he was attempting to pull him back onto the shoreline and retrieve the hook," Brian Addison, Park Manager was quoted as saying in WMBB.com.

The crowd present at the scene made several attempts to guide the mother hammerhead back into the water but all the attempts were unsuccessful as the mother shark kept swimming back to the shore.

"It appears that it was in great distress at that time, and after several attempts, they were unsuccessful in trying to get the shark to swim back into open water," said Addison.

The mother shark died after some time.

According to a local resident Kathy Hunt, who witnessed the whole episode, the mother shark was trying to get back into the waters but it was too agitated and thrashed around.

The situation was taken under control by the Park rangers.