Smalltooth Sawfish

The Smalltooth Sawfish (Pristis pectinata) is a large ray-like cartilaginous fish belonging to the family Pristidae, distinguished by its long, flattened, blade-like rostrum edged with rows of teeth. Despite its shark-like body shape, it is more closely related to rays and skates. Once found throughout warm coastal and estuarine waters of the western Atlantic, including the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, its range has contracted severely, with the United States population now largely restricted to southern Florida. Habitat loss, entanglement in fishing gear, and its vulnerable rostrum, which easily tangles in nets, have driven the species to Critically Endangered status, and it is among the most imperiled cartilaginous fish groups worldwide.

• Body: elongated, shark-like, dorsoventrally flattened
• Rostrum: long, flat, blade-shaped, edged evenly with 24-32 pairs of small, similarly sized teeth
• Color: uniform grey-brown to olive above, pale cream to white below
• Fins: two dorsal fins, the first positioned roughly over the pelvic fins; well-developed caudal fin
• Size: total length commonly 4-5.5 m

Distinguished from the largetooth sawfish by its narrower rostrum bearing more numerous, smaller, evenly spaced teeth, and by the position of its first dorsal fin further back relative to the pelvic fins.

Smalltooth Sawfish inhabit warm, shallow coastal, estuarine, and occasionally brackish waters of the western Atlantic, historically ranging from New York south through the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and Brazil. Today the species is most reliably found in southern Florida, particularly around mangrove-lined estuaries, shallow bays, and the Everglades region, which serve as critical nursery habitat for juveniles. They favor shallow water less than 10 m deep, often over sand or mud substrates near mangroves, and juveniles in particular depend heavily on sheltered, structurally complex shallow habitats for protection.

Smalltooth Sawfish use their toothed rostrum both to detect prey through electroreception and to strike and slash through schools of fish, stunning or injuring them before feeding, and also to dig through sediment for buried invertebrates. They are generally solitary and most active around dawn, dusk, and at night. Reproduction is ovoviviparous, with females giving birth to litters of pups that already possess a soft, sheathed rostrum to protect the mother during birth. Juveniles rely on shallow mangrove and estuarine nurseries for their first years of life. Because of their toothed rostrum, sawfish are especially prone to entanglement in fishing nets, a major factor in their steep population decline.