Longnose Sawshark
Pristiophorus cirratus
A shark with a saw for a nose, and whiskers halfway down it.
Yes, it's a real shark, with gill slits on the sides of its head and a skeleton of cartilage. What makes it strange is its snout: long, flat, lined with teeth, and more than a quarter of its whole length. Partway down the saw hang two long barbels, like whiskers, which it trails over the sea floor to feel for food. It lives only in the cool seas off southern Australia.
On the conservation status
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. It's caught and eaten in southern Australia, but so far its numbers are holding steady.
- Length
- About 1.4 m (4.5 ft)
- Saw teeth
- 19–25 big ones a side, small ones between
- Diet
- Small fish, shrimp and crabs
- Depth
- Down to about 600 m (2,000 ft)
- Pups
- About 10, every other year
- Lifespan
- About 15 years
The good stuff.
Sawshark or sawfish?
They look alike, but they aren't close relatives. A sawshark is a shark: gills on the sides of its head, and whiskers on its saw. A sawfish is a ray: gills underneath, no whiskers, and it grows many times bigger.
Whiskers for finding dinner
The two barbels hanging from the saw are sense organs. The sawshark drags them along the sea floor to feel for shrimp and small fish hiding in the sand.
A saw that feels electricity
Near the barbels, the saw is dotted with tiny pores that sense the weak electricity every living animal gives off, so it can find prey it can't see.
Big tooth, little tooth
The teeth along the saw aren't all the same: big ones alternate with smaller ones. When one breaks off, a new one grows in to fill the gap. A sawfish can't do that.
Slash and dig
It uses the saw to stir up the sea floor, and to strike at small fish with quick swipes of its head.
Born with folded teeth
Mothers give birth to live pups, about ten at a time. The pups' saw teeth are folded flat against the snout when they're born, so they don't hurt their mother on the way out.
Wait, really?
- ✦
In Australia, fishers call sawsharks saw dogs, or doggies.
- ✦
There are about ten kinds of sawshark. One of them, the sixgill sawshark from southern Africa, has six gill slits on each side instead of five.
- ✦
It lives on sandy and gravelly sea floors, mostly deeper than divers go.
What it sounds like
Silent. Sharks have no known calls of any kind.
Where you might see one
Southern Australia, from New South Wales round to Western Australia, and Tasmania. It lives deep, though, so almost nobody sees one alive except fishers.
The trouble
- Fishing for its meat
- Getting caught by accident in trawl nets and gill nets
One real thing
Sharks that grow slowly and have few pups can't take much fishing. If your family eats shark, ask what kind it is and where it was caught, and choose fish from well-managed fisheries.
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