Sawfish swing a toothed snout—and all five species are critical
Sawfish are very large rays whose long, flattened rostrum is lined with sharp transverse teeth like a saw. Some species stretch around seven to seven point six metres. They haunt tropical and subtropical coasts, estuaries, rivers, and lakes—and every species is critically endangered.
They are not sawsharks, extinct sclerorhynchoids, or look-alike-named swordfish. Slow breeders, females bear live young. The saw detects and captures fish and invertebrates; animals are generally harmless to people unless defending themselves when caught. Myth and ritual have featured them for thousands of years across many cultures.
Once common, they have crashed in recent decades; remaining strongholds include northern Australia and Florida. All five species are IUCN critically endangered, hunted for fins (shark-fin soup), teeth and rostra in traditional medicine, and squeezed by habitat loss. Conservation listings try to brake the slide.
The family name Pristidae and its type genus Pristis come from the Ancient Greek word for a saw or sawyer. Despite the shark-like build, these are rays, now usually grouped with guitarfish, wedgefish and banjo rays in the order Rhinopristiformes. Their species-level classification was long a tangle; only in 2013 was it settled that the five living species sit in two genera, Anoxypristis with one and Pristis with four. The saw is an extension of the cartilage skull sheathed in skin, typically a quarter to a third of the animal's length, and like other elasmobranchs they lack a swim bladder, floating instead on a large oil-rich liver.
A living chainsaw that is really a ray’s face makes an unforgettable silhouette—and a warning label. When every member of a charismatic family sits on the critical list, the saw becomes a measure of how fast coastal megafauna can vanish.
Source: Sawfish
