Sawfish Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Sawfish Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous to Recent

Smalltooth sawfish (Pristis pectinata
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Chondrichthyes
Subclass:	Elasmobranchii
Superorder:	Batoidea
Order:	Pristiformes
Family:	Pristidae Bonaparte, 1838
Genera
Anoxypristis Pristis

The sawfish are a family of rays which have a long body, like a shark. One feature that separates a sawfish from other rays is its long, saw-like snout. On either side of this rostrum are little teeth like a saw.

Sawfish have a mouth, nostrils, and gill slits under their body, just like a ray. Also, their pectoral fins are enlarged, like those of a ray. Also like rays, when they settle on the bottom, they take in water through two spiracles just behing the eyes. This gets water to the gills without sand.

Several species can grow to about 7 metres or 23 feet.

Rostrum

The sawfish's most distinctive feature is the saw-like rostrum. The rostrum is covered with motion- and electro-sensitive pores. These allow sawfish to detect movement and even heartbeats of prey hiding under the ocean floor. The rostrum serves as a digging tool to unearth buried crustaceans.

If a suitable prey swims by, the normally lethargic sawfish springs from the bottom and slashes at it with its saw. This generally stuns or injures the prey sufficiently for the sawfish to devour it. Sawfish also defend themselves with their rostrum, against predators such as sharks and intruding divers. The 'teeth' protruding from the rostrum are not real teeth, but modified tooth-like structures called denticles.

Images for kids

Extinct sawfish are often only known from their rostral teeth, here from the Eocene species Pristis lathami.
Comparison of the largetooth (top), green (middle) and narrow sawfish (bottom). Notice especially the structure of the saw, tail and pectoral fins, and the position of the first dorsal fin compared to the pelvic fins
Compare the sizes of Green sawfish (top) and Dwarf sawfish(bottom).
The smalltooth sawfish is the only species found strictly in the Atlantic region and the only that survives in the United States.
A smalltooth sawfish in shallow water at Bimini, the Bahamas
A juvenile smalltooth sawfish being released
Two largetooth sawfish at the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium
A mask with a sawfish rostrum from Sepik, Papua New Guinea, now housed at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin
The German World War II Kampfabzeichen der Kleinkampfverbände (Battle Badge of Small Combat Units)
10000 CFA franc Banknote showing a form of sawfish imagery
Atlantis Paradise Island became the world's first to breed a member of this family in captivity when smalltooth sawfish pups were born in 2012.
A narrow sawfish caught by a local fisherman almost 100 years ago in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia)
A largetooth sawfish in Northern Australia, which is the only remaining stronghold for four of the five species.
Sign for the protection of smalltooth sawfish in Florida, USA
A smalltooth sawfish briefly captured for tagging as part of a conservation project

Sawfish facts for kids

Rostrum

Images for kids

See also