Sawfish skewer species with serrated snout, say scientists

Their long snouts lined with pointy teeth make sawfishes hard to miss. But just how these endangered creatures use their toothy snouts called saws hasn’t been well understood.

By observing captured freshwater-dwelling Pristis microdon sawfishes, scientists have found the fish use sensors in their saws to detect other fish, their prey, and to swipe at them with enough force to impale their dinner.

The team, led by Barbara Wueringer of the University of Queensland in Australia, found that the sawfishes tore into the already dead fish they were fed, swiping side-to-side several times per second. The swipes were strong enough to split the fish in half — via redwolf.newsvine.com